I was visiting someone in hospital yesterday and on the bus back home, I saw a long queue stretching down Princes Street at Waterstones Bookshop.The reason for the queue was that Jordan, aka Katie Price, who is famous for…well, no one is quite sure… was signing her book. She wasn’t reading from it – I guess reading from a book that a ghost has written for you might seem a bit false – heaven forbid! – but she was signing her name. But only on “dedicated books.” In other words, you had to buy them in store, and once they had run out, that was it. No chance of an autograph on her back catalogue. And you could wait for an hour in the freezing cold and then find you were out of luck and the chance to “meet Katie Price” was gone until the next tour. What conversations people might have with Katie and how long each conversation would take (10 seconds tops?) is hard to imagine. Katie would obviously have to be rushed on to the next venue, the next queue, the next photo shoot. I can already imagine the reality TV series filming her as she is sped away, not forgetting to shed a few tears for the disappointed fans who had turned up in vain.
The long queue stretched from the shop down the street for about a hundred yards (this was 50 minutes since the start of the 60-minute-maximum signing). They weren't all going to get to see Katie. It was hard, impossible really, for me to feel sympathy for any of them, which is very unLenten of me.
