Promotion of A to Z of Britain and Ireland

With the recent publication of my A to Z of Britain and Ireland I have been busy doing some promotional work. I had a local signing at Waterstones in Crawley the Saturday before Christmas and this went quite well. Julian Clary signed in the store two days earlier and I was pleased that I managed to outsell him, particularly as my local rag quite understandably concentrated on advertising his event rather than mine. Mind you I do know my place. While Julian was afforded the privacy of a sheltered signing area so those who want to see the great man are obliged to buy a book, I, as always, was stuck in the centre of the store feeling like a museum exhibit for much of the two hours I signed! A huge thank you to Chris Oxlade at Radio Mercury FM for plugging the signing on his Saturday morning show and to friends, Pete Ediss, Ruth Benjamin, Justyna Greba, and Steve and Mandy Lloyd who came along to support me and purchase books (in Pete's case four books).

Although I quite enjoy radio plugs, and am always so grateful for this exposure, I am never happier than when addressing a captive audience so it was an absolute delight to revisit a school I first visited last year; Archbishop Tenison, in Croydon, south London.
Initially I was taken to the staff room for a much-needed cup of tea and then was treated to lunch by the IT teacher, Miss Benjamin, whose class I was to visit. After lunch I was introduced to 6th former Richard Jenkins, a budding Mastermind with the specialist subject of Quantum Physics. I suggested perhaps he narrowed this subject down to a particular area or, better still, one of the early pioneers.
The young adults of maybe 14 or 15 years of age then began to trickle in and I overheard Miss Benjamin referring to Cameron, Rebecca, Jessica and Abigail which gave me the opportunity to begin my talk by informing these children what the derivation of their names were. Cameron is something of a computer genius so I suggested perhaps his parents named him after a Gaelic translation of the word ‘Awesome’ (what I didn’t mention was that a more accurate translation from Scots Gaelic is ‘Crooked Nose’). I informed Rebecca that her name originally meant ‘one that brought peace’ but the sniggers from her classmates made this of doubtful authentication. Jessica seemed quite proud that her name meant ‘God beholds’ and Abigail was equally happy to know that her name meant ‘father rejoices’. The biggest laugh was after I rather immodestly told the children that they could check all these names out on page 556 of the latest edition of the A to Z of Everything - including my own which means Big....Head (actually this was my only misinformation as my name actually means ‘big village’).
I then spoke of how computer advances had helped me in reducing the time it takes me to compile one of my books although I did add the caveat that you cannot necessarily believe everything you read on Wikipedia. I retold a story I had heard at church the day before as told by Bishop Kieran Conry of Arundel and Brighton. The good bishop had been researching the possibility of John the Baptist’s head being preserved 2,000 years on. Internet sources cite possible locations as the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Sebaste in Samaria, Herod’s palace in Jerusalem, Emesa in Phoenicia, Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, and several other sites including one at Wakefield in Yorkshire! I suggested that when the daughter of Herodias demanded from King Herod “bring me the head of John the Baptist” perhaps Herod should have replied – “which one!”
It was then time for a magic show. The theme was logical thinking and the children had to try and work out how I could get them to shuffle a pack of cards – pick ten cards from the pack, shuffle them anyhow they wanted and then choose one to show the class before replacing the card in the pack and then reshuffling before handing the cards back to me to make my prediction. Cameron was the first to play and I began by telling him that I had made a prediction that morning before setting out and I had placed a piece of paper under the orthotic of my right shoe. I produced the piece of paper and moments after informing me his card was the Ace of Spades I showed him that this indeed coincided with my prediction. Isaac was the next to choose a card. I immediately told him before he even returned the pack to me that his card was the Six of Hearts. It was fantastic to see and hear the shock and as an afterthought Isaac asked me why I didn’t make the prediction earlier as I had done with Cameron. I then suggested he pull a piece of paper out of my back pocket and when the Six of Hearts was produced the joy on the children’s faces was something to behold. Several more children tried their luck, the funniest being young Adeyna who shuffled the pack every which way she could and then changed her mind about her original choice and decided to select another card. Without touching the pack I told her that my prediction was made earlier and that if she looks in my coat pocket she would find a solitary piece of paper with her card written on it. When she opened the paper Adeyna freaked out and threw it away in horror. For the record no one managed to win the teacher’s huge cash prize (she had more faith than I had) for anyone who solved the trick although I did like one pupil’s suggestion there were hidden cameras (which given the computer technology of this room was very feasible, but untrue). I also liked the suggestion that I had 52 pieces of paper secreted in 52 orifices on my person! This was of course evidently partly true but did not explain how the trick was done with a standard deck of cards with no markings. Before I left I did inform Miss Benjamin of my methods but whether she ever tells the children is down to her – she will be badgered though : )
We then had a computer-related quiz. Fortunately for me I was not asked to take part this time as I had done to such unspectacular effect on my previous visit (I placed last) so the teacher asked me to write ten questions whilst she supplied the other ten. Just as well I was not subjected to ritual humiliation once again as I feel sure I would not have even guessed one of Miss Benjamin’s jolly difficult questions even though I had a six to one chance of success. Again the RMTUTOR equipment was used, whereby all the machines display the same screen when activated by a software package called Active Expression. The handpieces act as advanced buzzer systems. We could not only see all the answer options but also who answered quickest, who hadn’t answered, who answered wrongly, exact times and ongoing scores. And all the information was displayed on an interactive whiteboard. The children showed remarkable knowledge to questions such as ‘What year was the word "computer" first used to describe a mechanical calculating device?’ and ‘What computer device did Douglas Engelbart invent in 1963?’(answers 1897 and Mouse – I think). After a three-way tie at the top between Ryan, Adeyna and Cameron – The awesome crooked nose won by dint of having the fastest finger and chose the A to Z of almost Everything as his prize.
The last 20 minutes was given over to an exercise in designing a home page banner for my website using Adobe Flash (this was a detergent that cut cleaning time in half when I was at school!). I was to choose a winner from the class of 17 and this was an almost impossible task as each and every person showed remarkable flair and ability. I particularly liked Jessica’s method of tagging all three of my books on the banner with the first two books fading into the background whilst the latest Britain book rose like a phoenix from the ashes through the centre. I also admired Abigail’s innovation of having the 26 letters of the alphabet revolving around the bottom of the banner by way of acknowledging my epithet as the A to Z man. Others mentioned in despatches included Oliver’s use of each book gaining prominence in rotation with the publicity blurb making up the background. The winner though was Jack’s clever sales pitch along the lines of “Perhaps you are interested in sport (with a shot of the sports book now in the foreground), perhaps Britain (with the latest book taking pride of place) or maybe just everything (with my best-selling book now superseding the Britain book). Quite simple, but very effective. Rebecca, had been working on some other cool effects and Miss Benjamin has subsequently charged her with a complete redesign of my site, including the winning banner.
We had a splendid few hours and, despite my reluctance to divulge the trade secret of how my trick was performed, we parted as friends. For my part, in this sometimes cruel and cynical world, I was filled with fresh hope that perhaps the future of our planet is in safe hands.