Back in November inspirational authors started an auction to raise money for the Philippines. For those that had lost everything, or almost everything in a terrible natural disaster.I bid on one of these lots. The whole hilarious bidding war can be seen here.
And so last night, I claimed my winnings. I was not disappointed.
I travelled from the South Coast to London. Others involved travelled further. Emily and I mysteriously met on the tube, by chance, with my flamboyant Banana Splits T shirt giving me away.Hayley was waiting nervously, alone, outside the pub. We gathered her up and sallied forth into the drunken throng. We found Andy Stanton (who gives great hugs and is a perfectly lovely chap) and Anthony McGowan (more of him later) ordering drinks, hoorah, we sneaked our orders in and retired to the table to await the others. Soon we were all there.
"I expect you are wondering why I gathered you all here tonight" Andy intoned in an ominous clichéd author stylie..
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| No one ask about the banana... |
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| No! I said don't ask about the banana! |
The pub we met in was heaving, noisy and difficult to have a proper chat in, so we moved on to a (slightly) quieter location. Briefly mistaken for a book club, we were given goodie bags by Tony (some fab books, which led to much book signing), gifts from Andy(more signing). Then we were treated to some male rivalry
(I mentioned Andy won as an author as he was bearded, what Tony replied cannot be published here but suffice to say Andy challenged him to a duel, of sorts, in the gentlemen's toilets)
and took photos of each other, we chatted and laughed, laughed andchatted and generally got on like old friends. What a wonderful thing twitter is to help us meet people, and how super that while doing some amazing things for charity (the auction has raised over £50000 for the Philippines) we could have such a fabulous time.
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| Yes that's me, and Andy Stanton.....and the banana |
Sadly I had to leave at 9.30pm to catch my train, leaving the others to drink, chat and misbehave until? well I don't know! I hope they will comment here on what happened next...for me it was a simple tale of missing my train home, finding one that got me most of the way there, and finding a taxi...rolling in at 12.30 ish.
PS yes there was a toy banana, yes it looked and felt like a sex toy, yes it was inappropriate and we laughed about it anyway. It is Tony's fault. Click here to see why
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| Wow Tony, what a large banana you have.... |
Do check out their books, some really nice, and talented, folk.
