Tim Latham, published author

While Tim took the Bruce Springsteen bag to the other side of the room to show it around, I sat down next to The Greyhound. It was a book launch; and he was sitting on his own reading the book. I thought it an unnecessarily immediate show of enthusiasm. At some point in the conversation he said he was perplexed by his feelings for John Brogden. I agreed that it was confronting to find oneself having sympathy for a Lib. He said he could relate to behaving abominably when drunk. I wanted to say that we'd all heard the things he'd done and they were kind of sweetly needy and just made him more endearing. Anyway no-one could be a more abominable drunk than his old flatmate.

We looked at the pictures in the middle of Tim's book. The Greyhound said that he recently read 400 pages of an 800 page Bill Clinton biography but stopped when he'd reached the photos in the middle because that was all he wanted to do. I said that if this was a publishing focus group they'd be moving to the photos to the end. The real reason was because he wanted to start the new Harry Potter. He said JK Rowling gets what it's like to be a young boy. He didn't elaborate.

The sign on the door at the hairdresser says: "Sorry, We're Open" and on the other side: "Come In, We're Closed". Steve the straight, married colourist says some people point out that the sign is wrong. We laugh uproariously and I say that it seems we have a similar sense of humour. Steve agrees and to test the point says that he thought the violence in Sin City was funny. I stop laughing immediately.