Once More With Footnotes

working. Ring up local office of Wasabi Computers, who might be able to fix it tomorrow, except that tomorrow we're somewhere else ... It might be a software problem, says the engineer, and there's a fix on their bulletin board, but time is pressing ...
     
                  10:00 a.m.: Bookshop in a Mall, Outinasuburba.
     
                  Nice big queue and I eye the early arrivals carefully, espying a fan I'd met before. E xplain problem. He nips off. An hour later he's back, and slips me a disc with the freshly-downloaded fix. I sign all his books. No worries.
     
                  1:00 p.m.: Small Bookshop, Worralorrasurfa.
     
                  Still enough fans around to take the queue to about 75 minutes. As a charity wheeze, they can have their picture taken with me. One lady has made me an entire box of origami turtles. No worries.
     
    -
     
    Day 6
     
                  8:10 a.m.: flight to Arthur.
     
                  11:00 a.m.: Interview with Big Radio Journo (said to be 1st division media). I was pr epared to dislike the man but in fact we got on pretty well; he avoided the usual dumb questions and we had a decent 20 minutes. Sometimes it's a bit embarrassing to be interviewed by a journalist who's a fan because fan-type questions don't work well on a ir (they say things like "So ... is Rincewind coming back, then?" and you can hear a hundred thousand people looking at their radios and saying "what the — is he on about?").
     
                  On to Small Yet Seriously Worthy Bookshop, Innasuburb.
     
                  This shop is seriously behind all aspects of Discworld. They sell the Clarecraft models and had even imported the videos. Don't know how many people there were, because everyone was keen and wanted to chat and a bunch of actors in costume from an upcoming production of Wyrd Sis ters also turned up. A fun event; every tour should contain at least one. I was allowed to kiss Granny Weatherwax. Few people can say the same. Not without having a very croaky voice, at any rate.
     
                  On to Big Specialist Bookshop.
     
                  Big Forbidden Planet typ e of queue, heavy with carrier bags. One nice lady had brought a banana daiquiri in an esky. Another one opens the violin case she's carrying and it turns out to contain a polished scythe blade on a black velvet lining.
     
                  Will I sign it so's she can have t he name etched on? What would you do, boys and girls?
     
                  Signing overruns, so the tail end of the queue follows me down the road to Big Mainstream Bookshop and tags on to the end of the one already there. Among the people waiting is Ruby, who describes hers elf as my biggest fan and may well be, and a lady with some books to be signed to her psychiatrist. I sign them, advising her to change her psychiatrist.
     
                  Nip back to the Specialist shop to sign orders, and we spot a young lady fan surreptitiously walking out with the empty lager can that I'd been drinking from earlier. We shall never know why and dare not ask.
     
                  Check into very posh small hotel. There's a letter from the manager, assuring me of his attention at all times.
     
                  Go out with publishers to a fis h and chip supper. Ah, but this is Doyles Fish Restaurant, where they serve barramundi and chips, and a barramundi is what a cod becomes if it's been a good cod in this life.
     
                  Back to the hotel, where there's a letter in the room from the deputy manager, assuring me of his attention at all times. I wake up at 2:00 a.m. at the sound of an envelope being pushed under the door. It's from the night manager, assuring me of his attention at all times. I think if you stay in this hotel for more than a fortnight y ou have to marry one of the staff.
     
    -
     
    Day 7
     
                  On to Large Mainstream Shop, Nothersuburb.
     
                  Eighty or ninety people, I guess. One guy turned up as Death and was rewarded with a big poster. At least, I assume it was someone dressed up as Death, but who know s?
     
                  On to New Specialist Bookshop, Yettanothasuburb. Big queue. Lady surreptitiously attempts to bribe me to put her son in a future book. Trouble is, he's called John (or Sam, or