More shame on the House of Coles
Some very slight embarrassment.
I find that not only have I not visited the world’s largest pineapple - which is, apparently, in South Africa - but …
I failed to attend a talk that I was supposed to give.
CRINGE-OLA!
Now I’m sure this sort of thing happens all the time to Idle Tom the publisher. He probably couldn’t care a jot if he blows out an audience because something better has turned up.
But me?
I was brought up in the sort of old school where commitment meant something; where your word was your bond. All that sort of character-building stuff.
And so, having committed myself to attending a library bash at 4pm in Havering, I was keen to get there in plenty of time. Up at 6.30; train at 8am; and all set to be in the Smoke by 12.40.
Plenty of time to make it to Havering. Nice. Relaxed. Chilled. (It’s a hang-over from my manic days working for The Sun in New York, where every single flight I had to catch was always a nerve-jangling sprint. One of those trips gave me a hernia - literally.)
Then at about 10am the problems started. A line went down outside Darlington. Caught a taxi to York. A train to Leeds. A train to King’s Cross. And I finally rolled into London about four hours late.
I really felt for all those good burghers of Havering - the doubtless scores of people that had turned out to see me. And I was letting them down. Big time.
Nicky, the organiser, had done her best to call them all up and let them know that the star of the show wasn’t showing.
But she’d only had about three hours to do it. And how many people could you get through to in that amount of time? Maybe 100 or so?
There were going to be a lot of disappointed people.
Still - Tom and I tried to make up for it with an evening bash at Collier’s Wood. I prefer it when Tom’s there - it means I have a straight man. We had a few laughs. Talked about romance. Still haven’t managed to find Tom a girlfriend though.
About the Pineapple - the Pineapple which is not quite the world’s biggest pineapple. Well it may not be the biggest. But I’ll bet it’s the oldest! Take that Miss Cowling!