Rachel and I zoomed east along the M4 on Tuesday afternoon to visit Waterstones in Bristol for a talk about the new Designing Terry Pratchett's Discworld book by Paul Kidby and a Hogswatch celebration with mulled wine and mince-pies.
Rob dragged * Marc Burrows (kicking and screaming) with him to the event.
If you didn't know, Marc Burrows wrote the unofficial Terry Pratchett biography The Magic of Terry Pratchett and currently lives in Bristol. It would have been rude to not have him there.
An unofficial meeting of the Association of Terry Pratchett Biographers was not part of the advertised programme for the evening, but it was a very welcome addition.
Beth Webb, our host interviewer for the evening introduced Rob and Marc to the audience and asked her first question along the lines of "Josh Kirby was the cover artist, why did Terry change over to Paul Kidby?"
The audience reaction to the question was one of complete astonishment that she didn't know the answer already.
Rob's direct response of "Josh had died" seemed to take her more than slightly by surprise.
Rob paused, and then went on to tell the story of how Paul and Terry met at a book signing - without giving any spoilers, I'm sure the full story is in the book.
He continued, Terry was working on a book we have all read called Flowers of the Mind. Terry asked Paul to come up with a cover and he created a parody of a Rembrandt painting known as The Night Watch. After seeing the Paul's painting Terry quickly decided to rename the book to Night Watch.
Soon though things settled down and once Rob and Marc get going (try stopping them) the job of interviewer becomes less important and at one point Beth asked them to slow down as they had already blown through three of her questions!
There was a lot of talk of Paul Kidby's art parodies and how much he loves doing them. Some of which I hadn't noticed before but they are described in Designing Terry Pratchett's Discworld book of which this event was about.
(We've now purchased a copy of Designing Terry Pratchett's Discworld and I look forward to reading and reviewing it.)
Beth then opened the questioning to the audience. Here such subjects as TV adaptations, computer / RPG games etc were discussed. Rob and Marc handled questions well and unusually for one of these evenings there were very few if any "We'd love to answer that but we cannot" type answers.
Soon question time was over and Rob signed copies of books and gave away Hogswatch postcards and badges whilst chatting to the attendees who had come from as far as Cardiff, Wincanton and London.
The aforementioned mulled wine was made available to the audience and some very nice mince pies were available to purchase.
We had a good chat and catch-up with both Rob and Marc between the other members of the audience getting things signed. We haven't seen either of them personally for a while so it was really good to have a small amount of time with them.
After the guests were whisked out of the building a few of us headed over the road to the local KFC (glamorous I know) to have a cuppa and a catch up before heading off in our various directions home.
Our return to Swansea was mostly uneventful apart from part of the M4 being closed which meant we took an interesting diversion around Newport! We finally got home just before midnight.
Overall it was a fun evening and I have to say I really loved Rob's Crowley Good Omens Hogswatch Jumper. I just need to find out a) if they are available and b) If I can afford to add one to my growing Christmas jumper collection.
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* I don't think a lot of persuading was required.