The Upgrade by Paul Carr

Author:Paul Carr
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Disinformation Company
Published: 2012-03-12T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 1000

Like I’ve Never Been Away

It felt funny arriving at Gatwick airport as a visitor. Previously, I’d always associated the immigration halls at London airports with homecoming. Finally being able to climb back into my own bed, and to catch up with all my friends.

But this time it was just another airport; another taxi journey to another hotel. After two months of preparation—responding to questions from libel lawyers, checking final proofs and hyping the hell out of myself on my new site—the month of publication had arrived.

The first copies of the book were due to appear in stores on the last Friday of July and I’d flown back to London to conduct some more video interviews with “characters” from its pages, as well as to organize my own book launch party.

One of the things that first-time authors most look forward to when they get a book deal is the glamorous launch party to mark the day of publication. In fact, due to the vast numbers of books that large publishing houses churn out each year, there’s almost never a budget for anything more than a nice lunch for the author.

Throughout the writing process, though, I’d been using the promise of an invitation to the launch party as a bribe for friends to allow me to write embarrassing stories about them. “You’ll be guest of honor,” I promised about a hundred people, including at least two cab drivers.

Fortunately, as it turns out, the same trick works for venues. I looked through the book manuscript and made a list of all the bars I’d written about. There were a lot, and most of them were in central London. I sent them all the same email, just dropping them a line to let them know that they were “the key location” in my new book and wondering if, by any chance, they’d like to host the launch party.

What I hadn’t realized was that two of the venues—the International Bar35 on Trafalgar Square and the Gardening Club36 in Covent Garden were both owned by the same company, and therefore had the same PR person, who got the same email from me twice. Fortunately, though, he had a sense of humor about my blatant, and clumsy, attempt to blag a free party venue. He offered the International for the party itself, and guest list entry to the Gardening Club for the after-party.

The latter being easily the best place in London to pick up American student girls, it wasn’t a difficult offer to accept. A month back in London also fitted perfectly with my nomadic experiment. I had always planned to spend at least some time “back home” during the year—to catch up with friends as well as sorting out silly administrative things like going to the dentist and catching up with my bank manager. I’d managed to free myself of most bills when I left my apartment behind, but there were still some things that needed face-to-face attention.

Also, I wanted to come back to remind myself why I’d left in the first place.

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