More about the Book Fair

Can you tell I enjoyed it? I didn't tell you yet about the open floor session with David Starkey, Tom Parker Bowles, Nicholas Coleridge and A A Gill. It was very interesting, all four spoke very well. David Starkey was funnier than I'd imagined him, A A Gill was as acerbic as I'd thought he would be, I had never heard of Nicholas Coleridge so had no expectations, but he was also good fun. The biggest surprise for me was Tom Parker Bowles, who was funny, self-effacing and at times serious when talking about his job as a journalist. Big surprise to me; I'd quite wrongly assumed he'd be a bit of a "Hoorah Henry" and got where he is on the back of his family's fame (or infamy). The session was chaired by Sir David Tang, a HK businessman and wit who may have watched Dimbleby on"Question Time" in the UK? ("Yes, you, the man in the powder blue shirt, oh, you're a woman, I do apologise") Anyway, great fun was had by all. Like all of the events I attended, it was a full house; the huge theatre space was full and still they kept coming, sitting on the floor, standing in the aisles.The theatre officially seats 600 so I'm guessing easily 800 in there? The first 100 people to turn up were given a free book by one of the four. Guess who was number 102?