London's Literary and Effulgent Salons, Poets in Dreamcoats Eaten by Dru...

Dear Juliet

As you know, London literary salons are where folks like William Pratt (Spike) hung around writing effulgent poetry and being eaten by vampires (Dru). I guess my Society of Authors get-together on the 14th is the modern equivalent and it's nice to feel like I did something with my life. There's also free pizza.

I briefly met a young author called Molly Arbuthnott there last year, got invited to her last book launch and ended up floating up and down a London canal behind King's Cross on a languorous literary voyage. It looks like she's having another one in June so I'll go back if I can.

Yes, I wish you could be there. They've turned the old 19th century coal warehouses into shops, pubs and eateries; and this is part of today's fun London. Walk past a grotty building site, turn a brief corner and suddenly you're in a swish urbanscape which befuddles the mind. I don't know how anyone manages to live locally, but still it stays awash with many-splendored people, some in amazing technicolor dreamcoats.

I had a spare morning before getting the bus back from Victoria, so I also went in search of Dear Miss Landau in Islington Central Library. I'd found out years ago that they'd curated an autism booklist and added us to it.

I wasn't too hopeful my book would still be there but the library was like a quiet white temple, a serene and quiet Muslim girl guided me gently to the right shelf, and there our book was.

That was a damn good day. I talked with her for a brief time but didn't want to break that beautifully crafted moment, found a trendy café called Vagabond on Holloway Road, had an unpronounceable coffee and felt pretty good about things while Islington basked in a late Indian summer.

All the same, I'm not going to tell you the name of the pub next to the local Underground station. You'd blush.

Oh, and now I think of it, you do know there's that twenty verse poem about you at the back of Differently Wired?

And I never used the word effulgent once.

Love,

James