Tony Curtis and Dannie Abse were in the shop reading last night from their most recent Poetry collections and in Abse's case his new memoir/journal of the time following his wife Joan's tragic death in 2005 in a car crash - The Presence.
Tony was a great reader but I'm sure he wouldn't mind me saying just what an exceptional reader Dannie is. Listening to him really brought his poems and his journal entries vividly to life with a rich yet sometimes tremulous voice. It really was top drawer stuff and the best reading I've ever heard.
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Self-Published Novel Turns Out To Be Really Rather Good Shock! After my posts a few weeks ago about self-publishing a brave young woman phoned and asked if she could send us her self-published novel, Imagine This by Sade Adeniran. It's very well produced and designed but more importantly it's actually excellent to boot. It's such a pleasure to open this sort of thing and read not only a compelling story but someone who can really, properly write. She tried going down the publisher route and didn't get anywhere - somehow it fell through the cracks. I don't think that will be the situation for too long. Keep an eye out.
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Ouch! I'm sure I read an article a short while back where someone from Fopp was telling the journalist how swimmingly everything was going. Must have been a last ditch attempt to drum up custom. Anyway, staff from over a hundred shops have been locked out and will not be paid this month. Shame on those at the top, I bet they've feathered their own nest plenty.
But it seems to boil down to corporate greed and hubris too. In february they expanded by buying the 60-odd stores of Music Zone after they went into administration. Will these fools ever learn?
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Corporate is not a word which can be applied to Fopp since they were a private company.
ReplyDeleteThat much said, it is rather pertinent at this time to re-read a business article from Jan 2004 "The Scotsman" with Fopp MD exhibiting crass arrogance.
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/business.cfm?id=26252004
'Catcher in the Rye" £7.99 Penguin sold at £3 in Fopp - where was the fucking profit there. And to think that the publishers queued up to supply Fopp.
Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity.
Discount wars gone mad : another one bites the dust.
The word 'corporate' has changed meaning. It's now a handy catch-all for all things pig-faced about the capitalist.
ReplyDeleteBut yes, discount madness indeed...
ReplyDelete