Q. I live two hours from London so when friends invite me to their book launches it is quite enough of an effort to get up to the capital without then having to find my way to some ‘ironic’ party venue. I recently had to walk ten minutes from the Tube to attend a launch in the basement of a pub near Tower Bridge, for example. Another launch was held at ‘The Old Horse Hospital’, some sort of underground cavern built in 1797 for the stabling of cabbies’ horses and into which you descend via a ramp instead of stairs. What on earth is wrong with the Polish Hearth Club on Exhibition Road, which used to fit the bill for every party giver, whatever their pretensions?
— G.A.W., Pewsey, Wiltshire
A. Rumour had it that the Polish Hearth Club had closed down which turns out to be false. Today you would pay £2,400 to give a typical book launch there.
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