The Bookseller.com

7th January 2009

Daisy Frost is an agent at the Edward Cecil Literary Agency. She blogs at missdaisyfrost.com.

Wrong place, wrong time

17.10.08

T S Eliot (or was it Amy Winehouse?) once said, “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,” but like the rest of the publishing community I have measured out my life in Frankfurt Book Fairs. Well, I say that, but I’ve actually only ever been twice—the same is not true of old cobweb features, Edward Cecil, my boss, who has been coming to the fair since the 1850s. In those days it took almost six days to get there, trekking across Europe with a team of horses, secretaries from the poor houses, wigs, quills and ale for sustenance. Now of course you can get to Frankfurt in less time than it took Edward to show Florence just how much he fancied her in On Chesil Beach. Or so I thought.

I am a very considered packer and like to only take the essentials—laptop, iPod, iPod charger, the latest series of “Entourage” on DVD, Agent Provocateur underwear (in case there is language breakdown and I become desperate—OK not really) and a cocktail shaker. I book my taxi for a punishing 4.30 a.m. start and then head off early to bed to dream of six-figure deals, hilariously pointless meetings with moustachioed publishers about books called Santa Has Feelings Too and karaoke with Sonny Mehta and Larry Finlay. Vegas, here I come—no, God, I mean Frankfurt.

Thankfully the journey started brilliantly: limo to London City Airport, fast-tracked through check-in, golf-carted out to a gleaming private jet “The Blue Door”, glass of champagne in hand as I reached the top of the steps and a kiss on the cheek from my hosts—the glorious-but-could-be-terrifying Anne Louise Fisher and the adorable Patrick Janson-Smith.

So as I sipped the Dom Perignon and settled back into the calf-skin leather recliners, wondering if it was possible to get a massage, I contemplated the day ahead—power breakfast, 14 meetings before lunch, 18 afterwards, three cocktail parties, a dinner at Mikey Rosen’s Bristol Bar and then carousing till the early hours with Lord Byng of Hype, Nick Cave and the Canongate crew in a disused prison-turned-nightclub somewhere near the autobahn. I nodded off to sleep just as Patrick started to croon “Come Fly With Me” to Anne Louise’s pitch-perfect piano accompaniment.

When I woke up, I stretched, lazily pushed up my eye mask and looked out of the window, but then I noticed something very strange—instead of that glorious overcast view of a Frankfurt from the air with the Metropolis-like skyscrapers all I could see was 12-year-olds in hoodies smoking fags and Mariella Frostrup riding a bike with her children strapped on the back.

OH. MY. GOD . . . I suddenly realised I wasn’t in Frankfurt at all but in my flat in Notting Hill, my total bastard of a Bookseller alarm-clock had failed to go off, it was now 9.30 a.m. and my phone was ringing. ‘Meezes Dina Furst? Zees izz Hans Knees from Boompsadaisy Verlag. I em et zee Hessischer Hof Hotel fur oor breakfast. Hev I got zee time wrong?”
I hung up and ran screaming into the shower. I admit it—I have occasionally turned up at the wrong restaurant for lunch, but I’ve never been in the wrong country for breakfast. Something tells me, I might be in trouble . . .