Friday 21 May 2010 Hogarth's London walk from Westminster Reference Library 18.00-20.00


A beautiful evening with a good attendance (40 booked, 25 showed) considering the alternatives, given the warm weather. As usual, remembered all the things I should have said afterwards but on the whole most of what I had intended to communicate got said. A croaking voice at the beginning - this was my first public event this year - thankfully recovered and I didn't need to sample the whisky that one participant offered me (did he have a hip flask?). Large numbers of people overflowing outside the pubs of Covent Garden and Bloomsbury; someone pointed out Rick Wakeman standing in the street outside the Connaught Rooms 'looking like a bouncer'. On my Whistler walk a few years ago we walked past Chris Squire in the King's Road - maybe I shall be able to collect the 'classic line-up' of Yes in the course of my walks? The generally enthusiastic reception has encouraged me to do a couple more this year - although nobody bought a single book or magazine and the walk was free; at least I did it in work time.