October: Art by criminals, free food and meeting Alan Sugar

Other than a rant about not getting a seat on a train, I haven’t written much lately. In the last couple of months my London lunchtimes have remained interesting but I haven’t felt inclined to write about them. I’ve enjoyed exploring the Southbank Centre, which is like a university campus as there are lots of people hanging out in open spaces, and lots of rooms that have random things in them.

The exhibition Art by Offenders was a memorable one – the artwork was interesting and so were the descriptions. One of the curators had written something along the lines of ‘we not only encourage art in prisons because of its rehabilitative effects but also because it is only in prisons, and in particular psychiatric prisons, that we will find the next Van Gough’. Interesting stuff indeed, and the sort of thing you probably only find in London.

Move away from the centre of London and you’ll see that the city is a series of small towns linked together by urban sprawl. Walking through the middle of Holborn is like walking through the High Street of such a small town. I’d gone there courtesy of a free Dominoes offer in the 20p Sun newspaper. Certainly not my usual reading material but I’m not fussy when it comes to a hot lunch for 20p.

Holborn was the nearest Dominoes from my office, about a 10-minute walk away. The promotion was on for a week – on the first day it was fairly quiet but on the second day the entrance resembled a kebab shop on a Friday night as office workers and labourers jostled for their free food. One scaffolder in front of me was chancing his luck by trying to get 2 Dominoes with one voucher; the harassed guy on the till was having none of it, so the scaffolder screwed up the rest of his newspaper and threw it over the counter.

There’s something about getting something cheaply that makes many people behave rudely. Poor prices equal poor behaviour. I’d seen it before by pensioners queuing up for £1 breakfasts and families shopping in Poundland. It’s not the same for everyone though, but for many there seems to be an unwritten rule that if something is cheap or free, then not only are you not grateful for it, you are also rude when you get it.

I have now been working in London for 3 months and up until today I have not even had the slightest glimpse of anyone famous. I was quite surprised as I had expected to have seen at least a few by now. Previously I have met Noel Gallagher (at a gig in London about 10 years ago) and seen Rory McGrath (twice in Cambridge a few years ago but I’m not a fan so I didn’t bother saying hello). Today that celebrity hat trick was finally completed as I met Alan Sugar, a.k.a. Lord Sugar of Clapham. I follow Lord Sugar on Twitter so knew of today’s book signing in Waterstone’s Piccadilly and had been looking forward to it for days.

It was raining so, along with a couple of workmates up for the adventure, I took the Tube from Covent Garden to Piccadilly Circus and walked up the road to Waterstone’s. After purchasing his autobiography I got what looked like quite a small queue for the book signing. I was then reliably informed by a guy who had ‘been there since 8 o clock this morning’ that I was nowhere near the end of the queue and pointed me to a long line of people who were confusingly in front of bus stop.

Standing in the rain I got assigned a ticket by a Waterstone’s employee – I turned up at ten to one and got number 168, the guy who had been there since 8am probably got about number 68 so I think I got the better deal there. 30 minutes later I was ushered inside and up the stairs to a cordoned off area near the crime section. Waiting for my book to be signed I took a photo of Lord Sugar but it came out blurred. I then realised that was because my hand was shaking. Waiting to meet someone famous is quite nervewracking.

Approaching the desk I thought about what I was going to say and wanted to tell him that I had been enjoying his tweets, particularly the ones about Wayne Rooney. When it was my turn he looked at me prompting me to tell him what to write. ‘Jeremy’ was my one word answer to this. ‘With a G or a J?’ the Baron asked. ‘J’ I answered. ‘How do you spell that?’ he asked again. ‘J-E-R-E-M-Y’ I answered. I’d done it – I had remembered how to spell my own name. That’s not as easy as it should be when you’re face to face with one of the most famous and respected people in Britain. He quickly shut the book, prompting me to move along so the next book could be signed. Whilst I was there, my workmate Jordan took a couple of photos – the best one is here.You can see my left ear and part of the side of the face in the photo, so I'm claiming that as a photo of me and Lord Sugar.

The whole thing was quite surreal really, like a dream it almost feels that it didn’t really happen. The signature in the front of my copy of his autobiography tells me that it did though. It was a surreal but highly enjoyable way to spend my lunchtime, and one that I’ll remember for a long time.