This morning I gave a talk to 300 employees at Pearson. Just before I left the house, I read a news story saying that Pearsons profits this year had gone up 3%, thanks in part to bestselling authors like Jamie Oliver and Jane Green. Who, I wanted to know, did they have to pay to plant that story on the day of my talk.

I do love giving these talks. Interesting to watch my earlier talks, like the one at Google (on YouTube), well before I’d refined my ‘act’, when I didn’t understand exactly what it is an audience expected from me, and just spoke, randomly, about not very interesting things.

My audience in the cafeteria

Now I realise that preparing a speech is exactly like doing material for a stand-up comedy act. You want to make people laugh, and you want to make them think. You want them to want to read your books, connect with you not just as an author giving a talk, but as a human being. The best way of doing that is by injecting some humor, some pathos, and some honesty.

So a large thank you to Rick, to Keri and to Shannon for organising and working so hard - the signings were fantastically organised with some sort of ticket system that seemed terribly complicated and must have taken someone an awful lot of time to work out - people entered the ’signing cave’ in batches of 35, every fifteen minutes, bearing colored tickets.

My hand is still sore, but given that Jamie Oliver and I are so responsible for Pearson doing so well (they own Penguin, our publisher), I’m hoping that they will send over a bonus to send me off to a fancy Caribbean island to recover. In all honesty, they did present me with a gift voucher to Daniel Boulud, which was entirely unnecessary but hugely appreciated - I’m hoping Beloved and I might get into the city this weekend to use it.

A quick and final word about the debates. I truly thought, at one point, that steam might start pouring out of John McCain’s ears. I hope he doesn’t simmer with rage like that at home, or at least, I hope that when he does, Cindy vaporises him instantly with the laser death stare…

THE ORANGE ELEPHANT invites you to
enjoy a night out with New York Times Bestselling Author
JANE GREEN!

This THURSDAY, September 25th at 7:00pm

Jane will be discussing and signing her books!
Wine and refreshments will be served.

The Orange Elephant - 383 Main Street - Ridgefield, CT 06877 203-431-7733
www.orangeelephantbooks.com

So I’m back after my long night in the city, and a couple of things happened yesterday that were a little disconcerting.

The first was that my glorious couple of hours on the beach earlier in the day, when I lay back as the kids built sandcastles around me, and thought, why don’t I do this more often, led to a familiar tightening feeling in my cheeks at around 5pm.

And my shoulders. And my forehead. And my chest. Yes. I am now horribly sunburnt. Lobster-like, in fact. I am shining like a beacon and I cannot believe I have lived in this country almost eight years and I am still stupid enough to lie on a beach, at lunchtime, with no sunblock.

Yes, you heard me right.

At lunchtime.

So, red-faced, I rolled into Candace Bushnell’s radio show on Sirius satellite radio, where she insisted, nay, forced, a huge glass of white wine on me. What can I say? I’d had a two-hour car journey in, I was uncomfortably burnt, and a little stressed. I drank it. In pretty much one go.

I wish I could tell you how the radio show was but in truth I don’t really remember. I do know that I adore Candace - she’s funny and irreverent, and brilliantly talented - not many people could write and create a phenomenon such as Sex in the City (I also think she might be completely bonkers…sssh. Don’t tell anyone)

I then left the gorgeous Candace (you can see from the picture how teeny tiny she is. And look at me! Red, shining and HUGE! And horrible hair. I’ve bought these new heated roller things and I’m determined to figure out how to use them, but every time I do, I end up with scary Dallas-like big hair, and if anyone’s reading this feeling upset in Dallas, I’m talking TV series…)

Note to self: never have picture taken next to teeny tiny skinny gorgeous women who write books and television series that feature other teeny tiny skinny gorgeous women who dress in great clothes. They will always make you look like a small whale.

For the record, Candace had on amazing crocodile mules. And metallic blue nail polish. Just in case you were wondering. I then staggered over to Borders on Park Avenue for an event.

A wonderful event - lovely people, and one, Natalie, came from Baltimore. Baltimore! To meet me! Do you have any idea how far that is? I think I made sense, sobering up somewhat after the bucket of wine at Sirius radio, although the microphone died halfway through my best story at the event, and we all sat around uncomfortably, smiling awkwardly, me at audience, audience at me, while - as luck would have it - the manager who lived a previous life as a DJ, came and fixed it.

Anisha Lakhani came, who is the author of a terrifying and quite brilliant novel called Schooled, which tells the truth about the elite private schools in New York City - she is a former head of an English department at one of them, and was a private tutor, so she knows. Boy, does she know. I couldn’t put the book down, and I think she’s going to get VAST amounts of publicity, but we all have to wait until August 5th for the book to come out.

She brought her mother who reminded me about growing up on a steady diet of Enid Blyton books, so I’m now off to track down Mallory Towers for my daughter, and then I’m off to weed the vegetable garden.

Seriously, what the hell IS my hair doing?