Love and a Sexy Beast

So artslondon popped over to Foyles for Four Letter Word: An evening "dedicated to the art of the love letter". Well actually, that's not quite what it's about. Four Letter Word is a collection of fictional love letters written by an array of writers young, old and trendy.

It's actually quite a good idea for a collection. When you describe it to others it sounds rather wet but the potential for comedy, tragedy, farce etc. in a love letter is pretty much infinite. Match the idea with writers like Douglas Coupland and Michel Faber and you have something worth, well, at least an in-store browse.

The evening consisted of a slightly dull talk from the people who put the collection together followed by readings from four of the authors involved. First up was Lionel Shriver. We've never read We Need To Talk About Kevin but feel like we know it pretty well, such is the frequency with which we see it being carried on public transport. We definitely won't be reading it now. Lionel Shriver was the only person there to come across as self-important and arrogant. If artslondon had written a short story as tedious and predictable as her contribution to the collection, we would be embarrassed to read it in front of an audience. The fact that she seemed to take great pleasure in its every line and kept making herself laugh even though it wasn't at all funny, did not help. We're not fans.

She was followed by a nervous Gautam Malkani who read a short, sensitive piece about memory and death which was rather sweet if instantly forgettable. Much better was Hari Kunzru who had written a fictional letter from a Brit to an Oman local with whom he had a fleeting romance. He is consumed with guilt by the tawdriness of the whole affair and the boundaries which spring up around their relationship without them having any power over it. There was a lot of colonial guilt there but it was the only truly great piece we heard all evening. If you do have a browse through the book, that's the one to read first.

And we can't tell you what Michel Faber's contribution was like because we had to leave and go and see a free screening of Sexy Beast at the Prince Charles Cinema. As part of the Channel 4 birthday celebrations they'll be showing a range of free films in the next few weeks. Best of all, next Thursday we will be heading on down there to see the awesome Motorcycle Diaries. Ewan Mcgregor isn't in it. Che Guevara is.

Tomorrow night: Rilo Kiley at Shepherds Bush Empire. We can't claim to be excited at the prospect, but the tickets were free and it was that or stay in and watch old Prime Suspect DVDs.