Psycho Commissioning Editor

I’ve been to a few London book fairs now. I’m ready to accept that, aside from walking around the scarily similar stands and buying five pound coffees, if you’re not here to make deals and chew the fat, there isn’t much point of being here at all. You won’t come away from the fair with some home made trinkets and some delightful organic pesto. You’re more likely to come away from the fair with some horrific hangovers and a story to tell. Pink flamingos on the roof terrace in the rain, Anthea Turner, drinking to excess in the insipid Fox @ Excel, that kind of thing. Walking onto a docked yacht and eating hors d’oeuvres, scanning the Royal Albert Docks in the darkness. A terrifying black expanse of shimmering, still water.

On the Tuesday, I visited the Society of Young Publishers International Conference. Somebody called Jon Slack got up and pressed play on a laptop, aiming to show us a snazzy video. Images flickered on the screen but the sound wasn’t working. Finally, after some fiddling around, the audio made it way across to an audience made up of various publishers, students and assorted international creative industries people. It was schmaltzy musak which for me totally misrepresented the venerable Society. For me, the Society has involved drinking until emerging blinking into the morning light as the street cleaners were out in Soho. We bought breakfast gratefully on Tottenham Court Road and then got the Tube home. It should have been music that held a knowing, laid-back air. One of the edgier tracks off an Ibiza Chill Out CD, spliced with some trip-hop and sample vocals from the 80s. Not 1000 Great Elevator Tunes for the Service Industry Vol 3, Track 10 – ‘Waltz of the Mid-Level Manager.’ I slumped in my seat. The speeches were better. It seems that there are lots of these societies across the world and where there aren’t – the Americans bemoaned the logistical difficulties the size of their nation posed – there are people who are trying to set one up. I felt reassured and oddly emotional. 

I checked my phone and sent a text to my landline that read “BOOK FAIR GOT ME EXCITED I CAN’T WAIT TO GET YOU ALONE.” Having the phone speak that back to me in its robotic voice would kill the few seconds in between Eastenders and Coronation Street, no doubt about it.

I passed some kind of lunchtime reception with wine temptingly laid out on trays. All they wanted to see was my badge. I was hard to refuse, but I kept walking on. After all, what would it accomplish apart from the inevitable decline into a searing pain on Wednesday and the traditional static acoustic accompaniment of an Alka Seltzer in a clear plastic cup? The emotions subsided to be replaced by a sense of – emptiness. Here was the fair, the trade itself, buzzing and humming. Less people, a recession dragging down publishers left right and centre and deals made with a sense of grim determination and desperation. For once, I was glad I didn’t have a Green Pass. Being upstairs in that sharkpit would have tilted the balance on my hangover. I went to the pub instead.

Canon Tales was the event that was on everyone’s lips. On my lips was the taste of depression tinged with an ozone tang in the air near the new Espresso Book Machine.   A crowd of people watched a massive photocopier make books, but here was history. No more stock. Endless backlist. I felt an erection gather strength in my trousers and I moved my messenger bag over my crotch. The area was, naturally, full of bright young well-bred females in expensive office attire. I love being in publishing sometimes. By the time it subsided a whole book had been printed and I realised that the trade was shifting into a new era. And just like certain parts of me now were, the new book was warm and tacky to the touch. I smiled a big smile and felt at the bottom of my bag for my hip flask and cigarettes.   Yes, the Fair was in full swing.