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London goes to town over Clinton

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON: It was billed as the best `gig' in town, and Bill Clinton made sure that it lived up to its promise. Not that he needed to make much effort, except to be there — ready to pump hands and smile at every face that walked in through the door. The rest took care of itself and by the time he was finished with it, the former U.S. President had made history of sorts for a book-signing event. Within a space of some three hours, Mr. Clinton had signed an estimated 1,000 copies of his memoirs, My Life, — apparently more than his wife, Hillary, did when she came to London to promote her book a few months ago — and there was still a large, disappointed, crowd waiting outside when he decided that he had had enough for the day. Hundreds of people, clutching £25 in their hands (though a £4 discount was on offer, few were taking chances), thronged Waterstone's in Piccadilly, one of Europe's biggest bookshops, and at times the queue stretched for more than mile — with the tail reaching the hotel where Mr. Clinton was staying. The man at the head of the queue — a gardener from outside London — said he had taken his position on Sunday afternoon, a good 24 hours earlier. Cheers went up when a little girl called Chelsea — his daughter's namesake — walked in with her mother wearing a "John Kerry'' t-shirt. Mr. Clinton picked her up in his arms, and cooed: "Ah, she is beautiful. You're so beautiful.'' "To Chelsea,'' , he wrote on the book which her mother insisted she would read one day.

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