There were no free parking spaces left in Ely on Thursday evening – Jeremy Paxman was in town signing copies of The Victorians in our stunning cathedral – and his fans came out in droves.
Paxman was on a charm offensive and made no mention of a co-author, claiming full credit for the book. I understand from today’s papers that another author did most of the writing because Paxman was too busy.
The Grand Inquisitor admitted during the evening that he had only seen 60% of paintings featured in the book, and relied on seeing pictures of the remaing 40% of artworks to eulogise about them. He described popping into Manchester art galleries to pass time in the mornings while recording University Challenge in the film studios later in the day – and praised art galleries in the north of England for their fantastic collection.
Seven hundred people packed into the cathedral to see Paxman, failing to beat the cathedral’s biggest literary crowd puller Alan Bennett who attracted 1200 fans. You can see the crowds waiting for Paxman to sign his book in my short video clip. Paxman was very amusing and on great fun and easily wowed the audience.
In this case, the writer Neil Hegarty who contributed to The Victorians has been praised by Paxman as a gifted writer, saying he thought we would hear a lot more from him. In fairness to Paxman, he has mentioned in the book’s acknowledgements how Hegarty helped him because he didn’t have the time. It’s not as if he was totally blown out.
Publishers are obviously going to promote a book on the strengths and appeal of the celebrity involved. Even though Hegarty makes no mention of The Victorians on his website, the publicity from this willl have elevated his literary position.
Ironically, my copy of ‘The Victorians’ came in the post from Amazon. It was only £10.00…a change from the full price of £25.
[…] dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan added an interesting post on Jeremy Paxman and The VictoriansHere’s a small excerptThere were no free parking spaces left in Ely on Thursday evening – Jeremy Paxman was in town signing copies of The Victorians in our stunning cathedral – and his fans came out in droves. Paxman was on a charm offensive and made no mention of a co-author, claiming full credit for the book. I… […]
[…] dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan added an interesting post on Jeremy Paxman and The VictoriansHere’s a small excerptThere were no free parking spaces left in Ely on Thursday evening – Jeremy Paxman was in town signing copies of The Victorians in our stunning cathedral – and his fans came out in droves. Paxman was on a charm offensive and made no mention of a co-author, claiming full credit for the book. I… […]
[…] dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan placed an interesting blog post on Jeremy Paxman and The VictoriansHere’s a brief overviewThere were no free parking spaces left in Ely on Thursday evening – Jeremy Paxman was in town signing copies of The Victorians in our stunning cathedral – and his fans came out in droves. Paxman was on a charm offensive and made no mention of a co-author, claiming full credit for the book. I… […]
I confidently expect to have the same impact as a celebrity…
A light weight evening that boosted sales and profit for JP. Some great paintings though many of which sought to cut through the notion of traditionally victorian values and raised questions about poverty and the double standard with regard to women’s sexuality.
Caroline, I guess an author pitches his speech to the audience, and this was a book selling gathering rather than academic. Yes, it must have been extremely profitable. I did enjoy listening to his descriptions of the paintings and their background. I must join you on some more tours of art work around the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.