There's a poster promotion in Eason's of O'Connell Street, Dublin, featuring great Irish writers and their best-known lines. Sean O'Casey's has a quote from Juno and the Paycock: "What is the stars? What is the stars?" And, overlooking the spot where the shop hosts its celebrity book-signings, he might well ask.
Victoria Beckham, aka Posh Spice, is the latest astral phenomenon to visit the Dublin store. An average singer, no Ginger Rogers and, by her own admission, somebody who had to work hard to become superficially beautiful, she has nevertheless gone far. And so on Saturday did the line of people queuing with copies of her £16.99 autobiography, Learning to Fly.
The event was not as frenzied as the recent appearance of Big Brother winner Brian Dowling, but it was on a par with last year's book-signing by Ms Beckham's husband, David. Afterwards, the shop's teen magazine section looked like it had been hit by a tornado. A crowd-control barrier was employed to prevent further damage.
Whatever about the singer's star quality, one middle-aged man worried about her physical appearance. "Do they feed her at all? She looks like she's been in a concentration camp," he said; while a woman shopper, noting the craning male necks, asked: "Is she naked or something?" She wasn't, in fact, apart from revealing the hair kept under wraps on the Late Late Show, which was enough for her admirers.
"She's gorgeous," said Sarah Nolan (11) from Clonsilla, a Spice Girl fan for almost half her life and fairly typical of those in the line. Not all those who queued were female, however, although some of the males claimed they were there only because of Ms Beckham's relationship with their real hero. Graeme Leavy (9), a striker with Knocklyon United Under-10s, was one such. He clutched a signed copy of the book, but would be reading it only for references to his favourite player.
One football fan had a more devious purpose. Stephen Bracken (10), from Ballymun, queued with his sister and two cousins. He wanted Ms Beckham's autograph on a match programme from his favourite club, Liverpool. But the singer, in a display of wifely loyalty, refused to sign it. Such resolute defence has been missing from her husband's team so far this season.
