There are these people in Vancouver, sort of friends of the Writers' and Readers' Festival who organised a fund-raising evening in a posh club. It was to make money to keep the festival on the road. It all went very well: the committee had been decorating tables all day, there was a raffle for some extraordinarily pricey Louis Vuitton luggage, there was a jazz band during dinner and there were singers as well.
It cost a fair amount to go to it, but it was very well supported and the ladies were elegantly dressed as they assembled. It's very hard to find a suitable word to describe the crowd, I kept suggesting words to myself. Glitzy was wrong, they weren't at all flashy. Arty wasn't right either, they were far from Bohemian. Upper class didn't seem to suit them - it was too snobby. Wealthy was wrong because it sort of implied they were only there to be seen when in fact they were very interested in the festival.
Anyway, my table was very lively, and we sorted out a lot of things such as passive smoking, whether people should be paid extra for having boring jobs, and who decides what's boring, and finally the sure cure for insomnia which is apparently to get up and play bridge on the Internet with people from Chile and Lapland. And at the end of the meal we all sat back to listen to the entertainment, which was an amazing woman with pink hair and a bowl of fruit and vegetables as her props.
I thought that she was a cookery writer, but no, she was not a cookery writer, she was in fact an erotic writer. A very erotic writer. I know I seem to have lost all control of the English language and appear unable to describe anything at all but I defy anyone to write in a family newspaper what she needed these props for. Oh why had nobody thought of taking a Candid Camera video-recorder to the dinner? Why is there no record of the jaws, including my own it must be said, dropping to the table in utter shock as the nature of the monologue became clear. Never can any author have had such a reception at any reading.
The concentration was totally intense since everyone was terrified to catch anyone else's eye. The funny bits - and there were several funny bits - were greeted with nervous hysterical barks of laughter. When it was all over there was a polite and astounded applause and like the Emperor's New Clothes nobody felt able to say a single word of reaction.
And then gradually, as the colour came back to their cheeks and the breath to their bodies, they started to talk about her. It had been fairly funny, and courageous too. And of course there was a way in which this club - for years a male bastion - damn well de- served to hear a woman talk like that. But yet it was very unexpected. And after dinner and everything.
What would you call it? How would you describe it? They were desperate to know. This event would have to be described. Who could find the words? I said that it had been interesting but perhaps not entirely appropriate.
It was late in the night but I had finally found the word I was looking for. For this couch potato who is used to being tucked up with telly at an early hour, there is an immense amount of late-night socialising going on. I'm barely able for it at all. But nobody else shows any sign of wilting.
There was a party in the Vancouver home of Dublin broadcaster Dave Abbot and his wife Diane, there were barbecues and readings that went way beyond anyone's bedtime, but were followed by pizzas and more chat. One night after a particularly exhausting day, everyone said we were going to this Italian restaurant. I thought they must all be insane, but in that nightmarish belief that the Show Must Go On I went with them. I thought it was 20 minutes to midnight, but then discovered it was only 8 p.m.
My excitement at this fact was so great that actual lights began to shine in my eyes. Everyone at the table kept shouting at each other that it was only 8 p.m. And ordering more wine. The waiter seemed startled by this but he took it in his stride. He brought us what he called a complimentary hors d'oeuvre which tonight was a Tapenade.
As it happened, one of the number had behaved particularly badly with a female bookseller who instead of showing him her etchings had shown him her recipe for this dish. She had since been regarded as a loose cannon and referred to as Ms Tapenade. In this company the very word tapenade is a synonym for bad and even inappropriate behaviour.
So everyone screamed with excitement and laughter again as the dish of pounded olives and anchovies was put on the table. The waiter withdrew mystified. I saw him talking to a colleague.
"Look Harry, I don't know what to do with Table 34. They book a table for 8 o'clock and they go mad because it actually is eight o'clock. Then I give them a perfectly normal canape and they all go totally ballistic. I don't want to know what happens when I serve them the entree. We many need to call security."
And it's back across the Rockies again to Edmonton, long straight streets, and to a hotel like a castle looking out on a huge rolling Saskatchewan River and people coming a mere five-hour drive to listen to authors read. And up very early and back on to the plane to Montreal, warm autumn days and mild nights, and everyone up to high doh about the election. At the big Writer's Breakfast which the Montreal Gazette organises, 350 people sat down to scrambled eggs and croissants and there was a roar of conversation, most of it political.
In order to be instantly informed I asked one person about the current mayor Pierre Bourque. "Saviour of Quebec," he said devoutly. "Makes Montreal the laughing stock of the world," said his neighbour. So that sorted that out. And then to Ottowa, and after that to Toronto. Five Canadian cities, all of then hugely different, none of them examined even vaguely. "What a pity you don't get to see anywhere properly," said a kind of concerned Canadian woman.
It's true, but on the other hand even though I don't see anywhere very much, I do meet a lot of people. Hundreds of friendly people. And that adds up to a lot of scenery.