Doh!

John might have forgotten what day it was, and left for Left Coast Crime a day late, but his idiocy is made genius by my own stupidity.

For some reason I'd got it into my head that the convention was in Brighton. For those of you who have no sense of geography, or for whom the UK is a small place crossed in two strides of a short-legged dog,* Brighton is a very long way away from here. Getting there involves several hours of travelling, including the negotiation of London, which is something I just don't do.

Bristol, on the other hand, is just a hop, a skip and a jump away. Well, relatively speaking. I can drive there in two and a half hours, which anyone from Alberta will know is just popping down to the shops.

And Bristol, not Brighton, is where Left Coast Crime is being held this year. Even as I type this, the Great Beard himself is sitting on a panel discussing Cops and Cons: Characters from both sides of the Law. I hope he's taken Desperate Doug MacDuff with him. Tomorrow he gets to be all clichéd. I could have gone with a bucket of rotten fruit to throw.

Brighton is, of course, where John lives. So when I read about how it would take him four hours to get to the con, I should have thought 'that's odd. How can it take that long? Is he walking on those long legs of his?' But no, I didn't. I just sniggered at his forgetfulness. It was only when Stuart mentioned he was getting the red-eye to Bristol that the penny dropped. It seemed a bit daft to fly to Bristol when the con was in Brighton, so I popped along to the LCC website and saw the horrible truth.

So more fool me. I could have spent a long weekend slumming it with the crime guys in Bristol, but due to my advanced addlement, I'll instead be doing what I normally do, which is to say not very much at all. And my agent's going to be at LCC too, so I've missed out on an opportunity to meet her too.**

Ah well. Better dig out the map and make sure I know where Harrogate is. And that's Harrogate, right, not Harlech?

*like the idiot American oil man who phoned my dad and asked him to go to Aberdeen for a conference that afternoon. My dad was in London at the time. It was about midday when the call came in. And this was before there were regular flights.
** I've yet to meet, or indeed speak to my agent. She exists only as an email and letter personality so far.

Comments

Sandra Ruttan said…
What can I say James?

No need to kick a man when he's down.

DON'T FORGET HARROGATE! And pssst, it's in HARROGATE!
It's just North of Leeds. Which is North-East of Manchester. Which is North of Birmingham. Which is North-West of London.

Do you know where London is?
JamesO said…
London? Isn't that in South Africa?
Sandra Ruttan said…
Surprising The Horse Doctor lets you wander out anywhere on your own.

Probably has one of those tracking bracelets for you.

Um, and why not just go over to Bristol and hang out in the bar? You don't need to be registered for most of these conferences to do that!
John Rickards said…
I should add to the general addlement to say that I don't live in Brighton, but in Eastbourne, some 30-odd miles away.
I was going to mention that too, but I thought James might already be feeling bad about his general lack of geography and didn't want to rub his face in it.

Fortunately, Birmingham is North-West of both London, England and London, South Africa, so provided distances aren't important, my general directions still hold true.
JamesO said…
I wondered why she gave me that funny looking watch. It doesn't tell the time right at all...

Sorry John, I didn't mean to misplace you. Perhaps you'd consider moving to Brighton just to make life easier for me? Mind you, given my current mental state it won't be long before I end up somewhere down on the south coast.
Sandra Ruttan said…
I didn't want to say anything.

I thought maybe Rickards didn't want James to know where to find him.
Stuart MacBride said…
"I thought maybe Rickards didn't want James to know where to find him."

Surely he'd just have to follow the smell of whelks?

Popular Posts