Talking about your own books
The panel at Charles Dickens's 212th birthday party this week were proof that we can never have enough of experts
It will probably come as some surprise to you that I do not model myself on James Bond. I never have my dry martinis served in a deep champagne goblet (Casino Royale), I’m only fond of rather than addicted to scrambled eggs (passim), and I almost never take amphetamines before a big game of bridge (Moonraker). But one thing we do have in common is our approach to lectures.
In Goldfinger, Bond goes to meet the finely-titled Colonel Smithers, a big cheese at the Bank of England (played in the film by Richard ‘Slartibartfast’ Vernon), to find out more about gold. 007 is in a bit of a mardy mood but suddenly becomes interested once Smithers starts yakking on about the noble metal. “Bond sat back,” writes Ian Fleming in the book. “He was prepared to listen to anyone who was master of his subject, any subject.”
Me too, James, me too. So I was delighted to be invited to the 212th birthday of Charles Dickens at his eponymous museum in London this week. There was birthday cake with icing and red jam in the middle, there were chocolate brownies which I didn’t try but looked nice, and, understandably since the room was full of journalists, a generous amount of wine (Dickens would have approved - he kept detailed lists of what he had down in his wine cellar - “Besides which there are 5 Gallons in Stone Jars of the Whisky, to be used first” - , a copy of which sold for a smidgeon under £12,000 at Sotheby’s five years ago).
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