For me, the day of our Alex Fynn / Alan Smith signing of Arsenal - the Making of a Superclub began ominously. I arrived at Hitchin train station to be greeted by the sight of half the town standing in the forecourt. Dismissing the notion that these people had been gripped by a spontaneous mass outburst of festive bonhomie and were comparing basting methods, my razor-sharp faculty of deductive reasoning reached the conclusion that yesterday evening's problems with unsteady Flange Capacitors in the King's Cross area had been granted an extension. Sure enough, the station was full of no trains in both directions, which necessitated my walking back home and driving to Welwyn Garden City.
Once I arrived at The Bookshop, however, a more positive mood was discovered. Inspired by the imminent appearance of their former stalwart Alan Smith, Arsenal had walloped in an unfeasibly large number of goals against the hapless Reading the previous evening; the books had arrived in timely fashion, (we believe in the old-fashioned virtue of having books at book signings) and the advance orders with special dedications were neatly arranged for the pre-signing signing session. Even the potential and dangerous distraction from our event which manifested itself in the form of a children's choir on the ground floor proved futile, especially when our science-fiction obsessed colleague walked past them several times in the highly realistic zombie costume he had acquired at his last convention.
Soon, a spirited crowd had formed itself into a more or less orderly queue outside the shop, (although things did get a little edgy when someone suggested that Arsenal should be playing with a roving midfield sweeper behind a sagging diamond formation) and I had to suppress the urge to walk past them chanting Tottenham Hotspur slogans, which, I can assure you, required considerable effort. Messrs Fynn and Smith were friendliness and charm themselves, as they signed for and were photographed with a steady stream of delighted pilgrims from The Emirates.
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| Smith (left) and Fynn |
The business of converting the shop into a signing-friendly zone and then reversing the process, while the Christmas buying frenzy raged around us was a stimulating challenge. We've gone beyond multi-tasking, and have developed numerous astral projections of ourselves which can: simultaneously attempt to look up books described as being 'Blue' or 'About something'; diplomatically urge parents to intervene in the process of their child eating the stock; replace books on tables and displays as they are (increasingly rapidly) snatched up and reassure persistent customers that we're not keeping 'the best books' behind the counter for specially favoured patrons. Late entrants into festive popularity, by the way, include Alys, Always and (perhaps boosted by Marina Warner's broadcasts) Philip Pulman's Grimm retellings.
In the end, all went well, star guests and customers alike were satisfied, and it was with good cheer that my colleagues boarded the special yaks, thoughtfully chartered by the rail companies, to travel home.
Christmas at The Bookshop, Welwyn Garden City has stopped taxiing and is now soaring majestically through the winter sky. Customers' voices are noticeably more anxious; they fix us with their glittering eyes and 'There is a book....' quoth they. As if the exquisite pressure of finding, selling and ordering books and rebuilding the children's section every half hour were not enough, we are hosting an event next week with the sports writer Alex Fynn and the Arsenal footballer turned pundit, Alan Smith, who will be signing copies of the former's book: Arsènal the Making of a Modern Superclub. Note - the latter is not to be confused with Alan Smith, the Leeds footballer turned ex-Leeds footballer.
Kurt Vonnegut once wrote (so it must be true) that 'No American is so old and poor and friendless that he cannot make a collection of some of the most exquisite little ironies in town' and, (transposing this sentiment across the Atlantic and diminishing it in scale somewhat) it seems my ironic lot (as a Tottenham Hotspur supporter) to be involved with Arsenal book signings. For those blog visitors less familiar with the tribal allegiances that pertain in the world of association football, I should point out that far from there being a feeling of chintzy neighbourliness between fans of the two North London clubs, they view each other with a kind of pathological, drooling bigotry that is beyond rational explanation, and almost never lend each other a cup of sugar. Some of us, however, are immune to this phenomenon, and are probably equally despised accordingly by many Spurs fans (no, it's alright - you're not getting confused, it's an affectionate diminutive for 'Tottenham Hotspur').
My last experience in this category involved a signing by another Arsenal footballer turned pundit, Ian Wright, over a lunchtime in a St Albans bookshop. We knew, of course, being booksellers finely attuned to the cultural and emotional landscape of our community, that Hertfordshire was a veritable nest of Arsenal (and Tottenham) fans, but the sheer size and emotional intensity of the crowd who turned up were astonishing. This was the only occasion on which I saw a queue for an event snake round the entire shop perimeter, go out of the door, round one side of the large shopping centre wherein we were located, and head down the hill a good way towards Harpenden, thus alarming citizens of that peaceable market town with fears of an invasion. The demeanour of the people attending betrayed awe and excitement in equal parts, and one couple even brought their baby, so that it could be photographed being cradled by Mr. Wright. At this point, I swore I saw two angelic figures hovering over the Arsenal footballer turned pundit's head, with footballs where their haloes should have been (they had a deft touch and showed a good awareness of where the goal was).
Anyhow - if you're (a) local or (b) an Edinburgh-based Arsenal supporter with sufficient motivation, we'd be glad to see you next Tuesday, 18th December, from 12.30 - 1.30.
