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I have just come back from Los Angeles. David Beckham is on his way to Los Angeles. David and I go back a long way.
It was in 2000. Probably in the autumn but I am not certain. I was standing outside Borders Bookshop in Oxford Street smoking a cigarette - this was before my hypnotherapy-Cd-stop-smoking-lobotomy - and I was killing time before I had to go inside to do a reading to promote another of my much ignored albums. I noticed that there was an a-Board on the street just on the other side of the door and I could see a poster with my name and face on it. I have to say it was one of the few promo photos I had ever had taken in which I didn't look like I had some kind of illness.
While I smoked, a few people walking towards the shop glanced down at the board and then a group of three middle aged women stopped and looked at it and I could hear them say "Oh he's gorgeous. Absolutely Gorgeous." Then another person stopped and looked at this board and wrote something down. And a few more people stopped to read it and then a few more. Almost all of them were female. This was extraordinary. Some interest at last. Before I went inside to shuffle my papers and soundcheck my mumbling I walked over to look at my amazing poster more closely. Then I realised that the side of the a-Board that was causing all the interest, the side furthest from me, didn't have my poster in it at all. It had a poster for a David Beckham signing that was happening the following day.
So when I finally performed at Oxford Street Borders I wowed my usual double digit crowd and not the 3 hour queue that DB generated. I was reminded of this by the photo above which I found in a box I mistakenly brought down from the attic thinking it was full of Christmas decorations. At the time there was a Borders promo poster that had me and David Beckham alongside each other and I had asked the organisers to get him to sign one for me. I like to think I signed one to leave for him too but I probably didn't. I can't find that but I still have the Polaroid. I think I sat at that same table you can see in the photo. Probably in the same chair. David and I go back a long way.
