Fleet Street

Another fun-packed day at work, followed by meeting my old schoolfriend Alex who's in town on business (always nice to see him) and then on to a journalists dinner.The journos in question were from The Guardian, Times, Daily Telegraph, London Review of Books, Bookseller etc, over here on a fact-finding visit in advance of the London Book Fair which this year focuses on China. So we took them to Shanghai, Nanjing and now they're in Beijing - meeting writers, publishers, editors, critics and taking part in the Bookworm Festival. As maybe I mentioned before, the British Council runs the cultural programme at each LBF (last year it was Russia, before that South Africa, next year it's Turkey) so we're working with the Chinese Government on bringing over 25 writers. I was expecting tough questions about the how this was done and who's coming, but they didn't materialise, probably because the final list is actually a really good, balanced selection and we've showed the journos a good time without resorting to getting them drunk.