Australian road-trip

I arrived in Perth early on Wednesday morning, stepped off the plane and was driven straight round to a number of bookshops in the city to sign stock and to meet their owners and staff. It's always fascinating to listen to the publishing world's problems in another country. The interesting fact is that with 100,000 copies of A Prisoner of Birth out in hardback in Australia, it rather belies the suggestion that nobody is reading books these days. In the evening I had dinner with Patricia Rust at the Weld Club. Patricia was my secretary 30 years ago, and left me to return to her homeland where she headed up Malcolm Fraser's private office. At the dinner were several politicians from that era, who brought me up to date on what has happened since the Liberals (conservatives) lost the last election. The secretary of the club, Commander Richard Sherwood, gave me a guided tour of the remarkable indigenous art collection it has wisely built up over many years. The meal was the best I've had since leaving England, and the Australian Cabernet (1998) was superb. Still unable to sleep until 2am because of jet lag, which was a bit of a struggle as I had a 7am radio show the next morning.

Began the following morning with a phone-in radio show in Geelong (where Prince Charles spent a period of time at Grammar School), and then on to my next show which took place on a beach just outside Perth where a surfing championship was taking place. I was surrounded by 6ft 4" surf gods all trying to out-do each other. This, I was assured, is a regular Australian pastime, and it must have been a pretty serious event because the Minister of Sport later presented Gold, Silver and Bronze medals. My interview was fitted in between the semis and the final - not complaining - as they had one of the largest listening audiences that morning. As soon as it was over, back to the city to do an official signing at Borders. Australia is the last place on earth where official signings work. I spent 2 hours signing just over 230 books, and left only when there was no stock available. This compares to the US where one is lucky to get 25 in a queue, and in the UK where they've virtually stopped having signing sessions and you just sign stock. The hosts of the next show I did were extremely kind and had remembered my love of cricket. They had invited one of their distinguished cricket correspondents to do a five minute special in which McGrath, the great Australian fast bowler, bowled to me at Lords in the final Test, where I not only scored 200, but a six off the last ball of the match to win The Ashes. That's real fiction!

My final event of the day was a speech to 400 people at a dinner arranged by Dymocks and the West Australian. I also ended up conducting an auction. The editor of the paper had heard of a take-over attempt on his newspaper which means he could be out of a job in a few weeks, and I was very impressed at how cool he seemed to be by the whole situation. He was certainly far less nervous at what was going on in his life, than I was about having to make my speech.

Had the first full night's sleep since last Sunday. Off to Brisbane tomorrow, but will not be able to report again for a week, as my PA is taking a well-earned holiday.