Wednesday 22nd September

Tonight is the launch of a graphic novel called Dance by the Light of the Moon, which tells the story of a Belgian woman's love affair with a Togolese man seeking asylum in her country. There is to be an interview and a q&a at Bar Music Hall near Old Street, so I head home briefly before heading to Old Street on the overground. This isn't a route I use often – but immediately I curse myself for having not done, given the faff of changing trains at Kings Cross on the tube, while the overground carries me to Old Street in something like 15 minutes. There's not too many of us coming from the office, but I've arranged to meet our new intern at the station so she has some company at her first launch with us.

We head through the hipster nightmare that is Old Street and find the bar after a couple of wrong turns – though I am surprised to find that it's a bar I've been to a few times, both for launches and just for fun. Clearly their name is just not memorable enough. We meet up with the publishers and a couple of folks from work, while making sure to nick a couple of beer vouchers to use at the bar. The interview starts shortly after – with the author being interviewed by UK comics supremo Paul Gravett – but annoyingly the bar seem unwilling to turn the music down in the building, meaning that the author, even with a microphone, struggles to be heard over the pumping soundtrack and the increasingly raucous birthday party taking place nearby. Either way, the talk is interesting and seems to generate a fair bit of interest in the book, so all is well. We spend the rest of the evening standing around chatting with various folks from work and otherwise – as well as attempting to direct a student on Fresher's Week to a nearby pub that might be better suited to his budget. We're not paying for our drinks, I explain, but if I was I wouldn't be here.

It starts to get late so we head back to the tube station – stopping to get a dodgy burger from a dodgy kebab shop – skipping over the massed drunks and tramps of this less-than-picture-postcard part of the city.