Finn and the Bird in the Tree

One evening dad took Finn in to the garden to check on the beans. While they were at it they admired the bright red Bishop Dahlias and dad brushed the dark foliage against Finn's face, making him grimace. The flowers were very red. They held the small but large headed hero's attention for a moment or two...

...and then it happened.

A sound cut through the evening noises of Camberwell on a Friday night. Through the shouts of joy and pain, the yells of excited children, the circling police helicopters, the reggae music and hip-hop blasting from distant car stereos. While all these man-made sounds were harsh and grating this was a sound that caressed the inner ear, that cooled the brain and made thought clearer.

Finn hadn't yet mastered the art of speech but his telepathy was pretty good. He looked at dad with his big eyes. Then he looked in the direction of the beautiful sound. He concentrated.

"Oh That's a bird" said dad. "I think it's a wren. Sounds big but that loud sound comes from a teeny tiny little bird".

Finn stared up into the tree where dad was pointing. An aeroplane passed overhead. The bird was speaking!

"Isn't this a lovely evening?" said the bird. "Aren't we all lucky to be here on this lovely evening?"

Finn smiled. He chortled. He sucked dad's neck.

Wonderful that such a little bird could make such a big difference.

Terrible that they seemed to be the only two people nearby to even notice his song.

It's saturday so it must be football. (Bad language can be heard on the terraces)

Wow! On Matthew's recommendation I've started The Damned Utd. by David Peace. I'm only 50 pages in but it's a staggering work that is quite simply the best novel I've read in ages. It's also like nothing else I can think of. It feels like a completely new, groundbreaking form that Peace is writing here but with overtones of the epic prose poems of the past. It also manages to be a work that can evoke and awaken so many of your own memories. Peace's turn of phrase is so clear, so pointed that sentences can send you into a reverie of your own past. I also can't think of a novel where all the characters are real people and all the situations are real. It is about Brian Clough's 44 days in charge of Leeds Utd in 1974 yet Peace really transcends any docu-drama elements to create a complete world. This has been called the greatest football novel yet. I'd say it is that but it is also a novel about men and one of the greatest I've come across that really gets what it means to be male. Take this passage. A paragraph that encapsulates the british male in all his grubby, boozy, leering, frightened, posing glory:

'The player's lounge, Elland Road. Deep in the west stand, off the main corridor. Round another corner. Two doors and a well-stocked bar. Low ceiling and sticky carpet. Easy chairs and no windows, only mirrors. Mirrors, mirrors on the walls. The smell of shampoo and christmas aftershave as they file in from the dressing room in their denim and their leather, with their gold chains and their wet hair, teasing and touching, picking and pinching, a gang of apes after a fuck, they form a circle, their heads as low as their knees in their easy chairs, they spread their legs and touch their balls and try not to look my way-
My Way, indeed.'

I love the phrase, 'a gang of apes after a fuck'. That pretty much sums up any group of men in this country doesn't it? That's what we are, a gang of apes waiting and trying to fuck and 'a gang of apes after a fuck'. Vulgar and crude but utterly brilliant.

Oh, and no need to add that it didn't make the Booker long list is it? It's not really a surprise.

(And in the spirit of the terraces and male bonding my uncle told my dad a joke who then told me: Did you hear about the man who mistook his sleeping pills and his viagra? He ended up having 40 wanks)

Death of the author...

No No No No No Don't stop reading! This isn't a piece of critical theory...

...just an interesting take on the art of literary translation.

I have huge admiration for anyone that spends time translating books from other languages into English. What would my life be like sans Dostoevsky, Szerb, Murakami to name but a mere fraction of the writers I love for whom English is not their first language. (Ok - I might be a multi-linguist by now but it's FAR more likely I wouldn't have been exposed to their work)

I recently met Robert Chandler who translated the excellent (and bizarre) book The Railway by Hamid Ismailov. He also translated a book of Russian Short Stories for penguin recently that has flown off the shelves. When I suggested his work was a labour of love he said "Yes, I do labour but I really, really love it so that's ok..." My kind of guy.

Anyway to cut to the point I just had a conversation with an Italian student about literary translation. She said she had done translations for business before and it was dead easy - you could be very literal. But now she was trying literary translation. This, according to her, is an altogether more complex process. You have to find the right words to convey the sense but to do this means you can't translate literally. But every liberty you take has to be checked with the author leading to vast e-mail exchanges and long international phone calls.

"It's so much better if they're dead" she said.

SO WATCH OUT UK AUTHORS!!!

If a rather attractive Italian lady contacts you and wants to translate your work - DON'T BE FLATTERED!

BE AFRAID, BE VERY AFRAID.

After all we all know what happens to sales the moment an author dies...

It's Official! There is no crime in London!

That's the only explanation I can muster for a scene witnessed today on the Hungerford foot bridge over the Thames on my way to the Strand.

A little Chinese guy has had a pitch on the bridge for the last year selling little whistles that make a noise like birdsong for £2.50 a pop. He's tiny and takes up no space and is surely barely eking a living.

Today, two of the Met's finest were standing over him talking into their radios and preparing to arrest him. At first I was alarmed but then it occured to me that finally there is no crime left! All the drug dealers must have been locked up. All the sleeper cells found and disbanded. All the burglars reformed. Why else would the police commit valuable resources for the flimsiest of 'offences' - selling bird whistles without a license.

So my hearty congratulations, London bobbies. Well done lads and lasses and keep up the good work!

I don't know if you or any of your minions read our blog but if you or they do...

"Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd."

Edith Sitwell

Big Head

Finn went to see the Doctor yesterday. You will be pleased to hear she described him as "perfect".

However while he is of completely average height he is in the top 2% in terms of head size.

Brainbox or boaster? Only time will tell...

The all-new and improved 8th circle of hell.

My mum had never been to Harrods. So I took her there. And we looked at the Dodi and Di memorial where people were taking pictures with their phones. And we didn't buy over priced tea. And we got the hell out of there. 23 minutes all up.

I was reminded of those medieval paintings by Bosch, Breugel and Cranach of judgment day. Something about the twisted, contorted faces and the rampant rudeness and the pinched snootiness of those people who believe they're a cut above because they have money. And the poor, bewildered tourists who looked like they'd wandered into Hades itself.

I love London but I guess one of the reasons it is the way it is, is it's greed. Unfettered gluttony and rapacity. Luckily there are other bits that I like. And I don't have to go to the ones I don't like.

(I didn't even go on a spying mission to the Waterstones in Harrods but I did go to the one in Hampstead which is a damn fine bookshop. If only they took out all those stoopid promotions it would be one of the best. Whoever's working up there knows their stuff, dammit. Many recce's are planned. I do like industrial espionage)

Executive, Legislature, Judiciary

Or, Authors, Publishers, Booksellers.

The three-pronged model for government is, in theory, an ideal one for the post-enlightenment democracy. The executive writes the laws, the legislature tweaks those laws and decide which ones are passed and the judiciary upholds some of those laws and throws out others. It is a circular form with no one branch, in theory, becoming more powerful than the other.

In the book trade, similarly, the author writes the books, the publishers look at those books and decides which ones to publish and the booksellers support some books and dismiss others. Each branch needs the other in a harmonious circle and everybody's happy.

However, one look at our cousins across the atlantic will soon realise that this model is, at the present time and for the most part, total bollocks. Oh well.

We had a visit from Richard Charkin, le grand fromage at Macmillan, yesterday after we had an 'exchange of opinions' over at his blog. Good on him for coming in and a jolly illuminating chat it was too about the nature of the book trade and its future. However one thing became abundantly clear soon after his departure and I think Marie, who was there giving her tuppence worth, will agree. Not only are we not reading the same page, we're not reading the same book. In fact we're not even in the same library. The circle of trust has become a tangle of second-guessing with lots of misunderstandings, dead-ends and dark places only broken occasionally by the light. Oh well.

'May you live in interesting times', as the old curse goes.

Hate Mail

A letter arrives from the Royal Mail - sorry, I mean Consignia - no, I mean the Royal Mail.

Dear Customer,

I recently wrote to you concerning Mail Deliveries to your premises on a Saturday.

So far so good. Except those egregious capital letters - what are they doing there? - but OK, I can understand what is being said.

As no reply has been received I would be grateful if you would confirm that you want your mail ever retained and delivered on Monday or delivered on a Saturday.

Confirm? Ever? What?

The same could be said about festive holidays when firms shut, mail will be delivered on the next working day.

You've lost me. Was that a question?

If however you want something on a mid / long term permanent basis then you will need to apply for our Business Keepsafe service.

*Anything* on a mid / long term permanent basis? Like a house? Or a pet? Or a boyfriend? Can the Royal Mail provide them all? And can we define permanent in this context? Doesn't 'mid term' imply temporary? What is mid term anyway? I thought it was something to do with Presidents.

OK, so I do understand what this letter is trying to say - just about - but this kind of poor English just makes me furious. Surely a communications firm should hire someone who can actually communicate?

Royal Mail, usually I charge 25p per word for this kind of thing but you can have this for free:

Please could you let us know whether you would like your mail delivered on a Saturday or if you would prefer it to be held and delivered on Monday morning. Similarly, whether on public holidays you would prefer your mail to be delivered on the next working day. Note that should you require any long-term storage of your post, you will need to apply for our Business Keepsafe facility.

Twenty seconds' work. And I thank you.

Boo!

I've just been on holiday in darkest Dorset (back in the shop tomorrow, if you missed me) and while I was away I had the disconcerting experience of turning into a character from a famous novel.

Bear with me on this.

I had set up my computer by the downstairs window of the cottage where I was staying and every morning as I worked on my novel (I didn't say it was a fun holiday) a group of three small children would come and play just outside. At first they ignored me and I tried to ignore them, but after a while I heard them talking about "the lady on the computer". Soon afterwards, they developed a new game. One or other of them would creep up to the window and look inside, and when I noticed and looked at them, they would scream and run away.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce myself. I am Boo Radley.

(If we have time, I can also tell you about how in three days the only person I spoke to was an old man who came and knocked on my door and accused me of stealing his metal detector, but I think we should save it for another time, as I'm tired, I haven't unpacked yet, and I don't know which major work of literature it references.)

Football (sorry!)

Most exciting thing to happen in football today?

Nah, not the premiership kicking off (Fulham don't play till tomorrow anyway. Who? Oh only Man Utd up at Old Trafford. I won't be going as Finn is too young for all the swearing and drinking but a couple of mates are going to be doing some yelling on my behalf. Off to a flying start as usual I suspect. As a Fulham fan the start of the season is always bitter sweet - particularly since beating Chelsea and Liverpool at home last year - the league and european champs -that will be hard to top...I digress)

No the most exciting thing happening in football today is The Damned Utd by David Peace.

Following on from his extraordinary treatment of the miners strike in GB84 Peace goes for Brian Clough's ill fated reign at Leeds Utd.

David Peace is quite simply among the best writers in the UK. He is a Yorkshire man himself and understands the animal nature of football and of that "Dirty" Leeds team of the seventies in particular. This is NOT a book about the "beautiful game". Football is not bloody beautiful - it's war. (But war fought in the way it should be fought - IE Nobody gets killed)

So there we have it - the best footie book in ages and perhaps the best footie novel ever?

Buy it from Crockatt & Powell - www.crockattpowell.com NOW.

To Katie from Gordon, 18.8.1985

It's musical bedrooms round my gaff at the moment. The folks are staying so my flatmates been shunted out (he's doing a job in Birmingham, we haven't turfed him onto the street) and I'm in his room. By the side of his bed is a pile of my old books I've yet to read. When I woke up this morning the first title my eyes fell upon was The Unbearable Lightness of Being, a book I've been meaning to get round to for ages. Infact I even picked it up in the shop the other day to 'borrow' when I remembered my old secondhand copy.

So I opened this edition and on the inside cover page was an inscription, 'To Katie from Gordon, 18.8.1985'. It was exactly 21 years to the day that this book was first given. It made me instantly despondent. What happened to Katie and Gordon? Was it a relationship that had long ended? Had Katie given away all the books Gordon had given her? Had they broken up over this book? Or had they survived and merely cleaned out a bunch of old crap? Or was it an attempt by Gordon, given the story of the book, to get into Katie's pants?

But then I realised that I was despondent because I just didn't care about Katie and Gordon. In fact worse, they were spoiling my book. Katie and Gordon belonged in their own fiction, indeed it might make a basis for a story but here and now their reality was tainting me and tainting this book forever.

I like my books untouched, box-fresh, new. I don't want someone else's cast-offs. And I don't want signed copies either (the thought of an authors voice in my head is unbearable when I read fiction, their signature at the front of the book only compounds this mania - look out for a future post on the Death of the Author - indeed when I worked at Pan with a revolving door of authors coming in to sign I had to run a mile so anyone's books I admired didn't have the chance to be effected by the author turning out to be a complete knob. This happened anyway more than a few times. Naming no names of course). I'd rather a thousand copies of a book being read by a thousand individuals than a single book being passed through a thousand different pairs of hands. The outcome may be the same but somehow there is a diminishment, an erosion of the power of the book in the latter case. A books new-ness increases it's capacity for impact. A book can change your life but if you know that the copy you are holding has already changed numerous lives don't you feel short-changed? You may know that a text has been read and appreciated for years but there is something in the physical nature of holding a book that gives you a more intimate relationship with it's contents.

It may be considered spooky that I had picked up Katie's book 21 years to the day after Gordon had given it to her but I don't believe in that stuff. It was just a coincidence. And now I have to 'borrow' that new copy from the shop.

An experiment...

Our book of the month this month is Either Side of Winter by Ben Markovits.

This post is intended to be a place where people can discuss their thoughts about this book. If there is a strong response we may go ahead with our plans for a bulletin board on the website where people can discuss books etc. So here goes, a little different to the normal blog but...

I had heard various things about Ben Markovits on the literary grape vine, mostly with reference to his debut The Syme Papers. Readers were divided. They either thought it a work of total genius or found it a bit heavy going. I looked at it and decided not to read it.

When Either Side of Winter appeared I was tempted again but initially resisted. This was mainly because of a review of The People's Act of Love by James Meek that Ben wrote in the TLS. I loved The People's Act and felt a bit defensive about the review. Who IS this Markovits? Who does he think he is?

Then Ben came into the shop I was working in (pre C & P) one evening with his wife. He asked if he could sign his book and I said yes. We then chatted for a while about booky stuff and it turned out we had a few mates in common (always the way in bookselling/publishing). The conversation changed my opinion of the man and I decided, I have to say with some reluctance, to give Either Side a go.

Initially I was unconvinced. There was something weird about the sentence structures I could not quite put my finger on, something almost Germanic. But I carried on reading until I became used to the style. I began to appreciate that this was a writer who understood not only the way that people think but how they feel, how changes in the weather or the most tiny, insignificant moments became vastly important to the individual concerned. As the story progressed and the connections and relationships became more developed I realised that I was falling in love! Now I verge on the evangelical when it comes to Ben and his books...

So what do you think? Come in and pick up a copy or order online - join the debate.

Ben Markovits - Brilliant or boring? All opinions welcome!

The Time Vortex

I have just returned from the black hole of time they call 'fiddling with the website'. We now have a navigation bar with lots of pretty colours that change colour when you hover over them. Oooooh. I'm really really chuffed. But it won't stay that way for long...

...and another thing

Why the Freak did they have to bring out a FILM of Miami Vice.

After the Davey (great motto eh?) thing (wild front ears etc) there came the horror of Miami Vice.

"Oi Crockatt! Where's Tubbs?"

AAAARRRGGGH!

Oh well.

Better get it over with.

Top 10 Again

We are SO busy today...I'm rushed off my feet...

Top 10

1: On Beauty by Zadie Smith
2: There Was An Old Lady WHo Swallowed A Fly (board book)
3: Remainder by Tom McCarthy
4: Camomile Lawn by Mary Wesley (flew off the table - new biog out - great summer read)
5: Secret Life of Trees by Colin Tudge
6: Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
7: Summer Book by Tove Jansson
8: The Leopard by Lampedusa
9: Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka
10: Journey by Moonlight by Antal Szerb


As you can see there have been a few new entries and a couple that hold their position. Zadie tops our chart with her Orange Prize winner. The table continues to sell strongly while the bestsellers according to the rest of the world hardly appear at all.

In Praise Of...

The Idler

We at C & P love the Idler, that lazy look at the world produced by the clever (and hardworking!) Tom Hodgkinson and co.

Of course being lazy isn't much use in running a business. But being lazy is also an art. And extremely political. In fact being really lazy takes a lot of work!

But I digress.

In this issue of The Idler there is a piece on parenting. (Baby bore? Moi?) In esssence the idea is that kids are pretty good at bringing themselves up. Left to their own devices they are more than likely to develop into functional human beings.

I won't quote from the article here - you can come and buy it off us!

One quote then:

Oh, Health and safety! How many crimes against humanity have been committed in your name?

Finn Visits The UN and Achieves World Peace Through the Simple Yet Effective Manipulation of his Face

Please note: No infants were intoxicated in the construction of this e-card sent to my sis in NZ...

Another dreamy day began in South London. The birds were singing outside in the gentle August drizzle, fighting for natural sound against the pneumatic drills of a group of workmen contracted to dig up the street. The cat was chewing catnip and waiting for the mice to make a wrong move so he could have some breakfast. Dad was drinking coffee and mum was doing a crossword.

Meanwhile Finn, small yet heroic, was bouncing in his bouncy chair and contemplating the possibility of world changing action...

...before anyone could react he had leapt a thousand miles or so (startling an albatross mid-atlantic) and landed in the UN building in New York where world leaders had gathered to discuss a new resolution.

Mr Bush was speaking about the need for "credible action" in the face of "terror".

Around the table other world leaders were nodding or shaking their heads. It seemed that another war was inevitable in the quest for peace. As usual everybody had a different analysis and what was even more familiar - all these wise men thought they were right.

Finn wriggled at the back. Oh dear. You know what's coming don't you?

An ALMIGHTY fart! Pong and awe! The mother of all air biscuits!

What was worse someone had left a microphone lying around so the cacophony was broadcast at high volume into the ear pieces of all the assembled diplomatic and state representing folk.

Woah.

Everybody stopped talking, listening, nodding (or shaking) their heads and turned to stare at our diminuative darling.

And what did Finn do?

He smiled.

He smiled and the leaders were confounded.

Their words of war melted in the face of such a lovely spectacle.

Suddenly going to war didn't seem such a good idea. After all we all were little once. Before the demands of society made us sensible and forced us to get jobs etc we idled the days away, smiling and farting.

In an instant World Peace was declared.

Finn leapt off to the Empire State. With another, rather overenthusiastic, bound he landed in Moscow before jumping back to Camberwell.

Nobody even noticed he had gone.

Cinemas don’t offer discounted prices for the latest Harry Potter film, so why do publishers allow booksellers to discount their bestselling titles?

That's from an article in the Times.

Answers on a postcard, please.

Every man and his dog's got a blog

I was going to put this on our roll of honour but he kinda repeats himself a bit.

The Woman's Booker

So, as discussed, the C&P boys are not Booker fans, but personally I love it, as it's a brilliant excuse to have some good old-fashioned arguments about books, which is the reason I got into bookselling in the first place. Drop by the shop any time with an opinion or two, and you'll see what I mean... Anyway it's probably just going to be me taking an interest from the shop floor, but feel free to add your views and let the games begin!

Here is the longlist. I've hardly read any of it yet (hardbacks don't fit in my handbag) but for what it's worth, and in order to get the ball rolling, I've added my initial comments:

Peter Carey 'Theft: A Love Story' (Faber & Faber) - I thought this was great, but I'm a big Carey fan. I think a lot of people found the CAPITAL LETTER BITS quite annoying, and they can't give it to him every year, so I reckon shortlist but no cigar or maybe even a headline-grabbing SHOCK OMMISSION. (It'll win now I've said that. I am always wrong except about Vernon God Little which I knew would win because I loathed it.)

Kiran Desai 'The Inheritance of Loss' (Hamish Hamilton) - don't know much about this

Robert Edric 'Gathering the Water' (Doubleday) - or this, oh dear...

Nadine Gordimer 'Get a Life' (Bloomsbury) - Not read this one (look, I'm not the manager of the shop or anything...) but Gordimer is always a safe pair of hands.

Kate Grenville 'The Secret River' (Canongate) - Cracking and, in my opinion, a step up from her Orange award winner, which was pretty damn good anyway, so in with a real chance for a place on the shortlist. One of our best-sellers in the shop so reckon it'll have some supporters from the 'Loo.

M.J. Hyland 'Carry Me Down' (Canongate) - I was put off this one because the cover looks just like The Kite Runner, and The Kite Runner was one of my most hated books of 2004 or whenever... Remember kids: always judge a book by its cover.

Howard Jacobson 'Kalooki Nights' (Jonathan Cape) - heralded as a work of genius by C&P favourite AC Grayling and who am I to argue with that?

James Lasdun 'Seven Lies' (Jonathan Cape) - We heart James Lasdun at C&P. Shortlist please.

Mary Lawson 'The Other Side of the Bridge' (Chatto & Windus) - Another unknown quantity for me...

Jon McGregor 'So Many Ways to Begin' (Bloomsbury) - This'll be one of those situations where if it wins it'll actually be for the first novel, like Al Pacino's Oscar for 'Scent of a Woman'. Woo-hah!

Hisham Matar 'In the Country of Men' (Viking) - I read the first couple of pages of this and thought, yawn, The Kite Runner again. So another one with a chance at winning then...

Claire Messud 'The Emperor’s Children' (Picador) - pass

David Mitchell 'Black Swan Green' (Sceptre) - I'm a Mitchell fan, in fact am reading Cloud Atlas at the moment (always a beat behind) and I heard some of this on Radio 4. It sounded brilliant and quite a departure in style for him from what I understand, so I'd like to see it do well. Matthew on the other hand assures me that Mitchell is dull and derivative and hyped far beyond his abilities, which is the kind of thing that always goes over my head. I just like his books. Sorry.

Naeem Murr 'The Perfect Man' (William Heinemann) - don't...

Andrew O'Hagan 'Be Near Me' (Faber & Faber) - know much...

James Robertson 'The Testament of Gideon Mack' (Hamish Hamilton) - about these...

Edward St Aubyn 'Mother’s Milk' (Picador) - and this one had a terrible cover.

Barry Unsworth 'The Ruby in her Navel' (Hamish Hamilton) - big name, horrible title

Sarah Waters 'The Night Watch' (Virago) - And last but not certainly least! The absolute number one choice from C&P and I speak for all of us here (without, you know, having checked with the boys or anything), because we *heart* Sarah Waters, she is local, she shops in our shop, this was our first ever book of the month, she invited us to the launch party and everything, and I drank loads and ate all the canapes so I owe her, and we just love her, LOVE her. Waters to win! Go Sarah! Not least because it's about time the winner's speech was sweet and modest and not a pompous heap of horseshit, not mentioning any names but I think we all know the culprits...


Of course, half the fun of Booker time is complaining about what's been left off. So just to get that argument started: where, please, is Remainder by Tom McCarthy?

Hiccup Down Babylon - The Further Exploits of the Recently Arrived One Known As Finn

Finn woke up with a start. Things were not cool. Despite the small size and relative lack of sophistication in our young hero's brain he had finally worked it out. The world was not all fluffy and full of smiley people like mum (and sometimes dad) there was bad stuff too. Really bad stuff. Stuff that was so terrible he felt like crying right about now.

So he did.

A while later, as dad collapsed frazzled onto the sofa, groaning and tearing out the remains of his thinning hair, Finn resolved to SORT IT.

A quick suck on the thumb (Legend has it Finn once burned his thumb on the recently removed from the fire body of the Salmon of Knowledge and now thumb sucking resulted in future seeing etc) provided a solution to the problem of evil in the world.

Hiccups.

Lots of hiccups.

A short while later he began:

Dark Satanic Mills were destroyed in a flurry of mouth flatulence to be replaced with idyllic workers co-operatives like Crockatt & Powell. (!)

Nasty words between lovers were mangled and returned as whispered sweet nothings.

Death had his cloak pinched and sythe blunted - but then returned as all good necronaughts know - Death is a part of Life.

Bombs became buns, missiles meringues, soldiers students and tanks turned into trees.

After an hour or two the world was a better place.

Finn woke up with a start.

Saturday Superstore

David Byrne

Ex Talking Head David Byrne has a great website. He compiles a monthly playlist that you can listen to on his site or at iTunes. And it just gets better and better every month. This month is a list of artists from his old record label. Last month was Standards and before that Electronica, country music, Cuban oldies and many more. Perfect saturday afternoon listening.

Prizes and Lists

A commenter invited us a few posts back to compile what we thought would be a 15 title Booker Long list. There are a few reasons why we're not.

a) Personally, I'm not much of a list-maker. I must be one of the few men I know who have never alphabetised their record collection or library and I'm not much of a one for top 10's, 50 greatest, 100 countdown either. I've never really liked shelving too as I'm sure Matthew and Marie will have noticed - I kind of like 'ordered randomness', whatever that means.

b) I'm just not sure how you can turn literature into a hierarchy. Of course I believe in good and bad but every good book is so different from the next you can only discuss them on their own merits. You can compare and contrast but to place them in order seems somehow Romantic as opposed to Enlightened. I'm the latter, mostly.

c) At places like Waterstones it is imperative for them to have the same books front of house at every store. It doesn't make commercial sense for us to have the same 15 titles at the front of our shop as you see in Waterstones and the others. We'll look at the list, see what we like and stock what we think will be complimentary to our selection.

And d) We could run a C&P alternative Booker prize. It might be a bit of a laugh but I just don't think our customers would really care. Also see a) and b) above. The longlist is primarily a sales boost for Publishers much in the same way Valentine's Day is for card people. That's fine, everyone wants to make a bit of money but I think our punters expect a little more from us by now.

I might get into trouble for this

I read on Susan Hill's blog that she would never want to run a second hand bookshop. I too am having increasing difficulties with this part of the trade. Primarily any book sold from a secondhand shop or from the Amazon market place or Ebay that is still In Print means the author doesn't receive a royalty from that sale. That seems unfair. Considering authors make so little money anyway it seems really unfair. Maybe if 2nd hand dealers paid a kind of Author Tax so funds could be distributed to authors then maybe...

So, maybe secondhand places are good for Out of Print stuff. Unfortunately, for me this just points out the paucity of our libraries. If, when you are finished with a book and you don't want to keep it and it is out of print shouldn't there be a national network of libraries where that book can find a home and live on being borrowed? And shouldn't Out of Print stuff just be put on the Internet? Sorry, dodgy ground here.

Antiquarian? Again libraries. Oh dear, I don't really want to put second hand book dealers out of business. Honest.

But also, we get quite a few customers who are dedicated 2nd hand buyers. They ask us if we only sell new books and then leave in a cloud of contempt when we say yes. Sorry people but for a book to be second-hand someone has to have bought it new at sometime! You need us!

Last two books sold

Both to young twenty-something regulars. Madame Bovary to the very attractive woman and Philosophy Principles and Problems by Roger Scruton to the scruffy student bloke. Neither seemed to quibble at paying the cover price. Makes me come over all elitist and snobby. This is a good thing.

A message for Jonathan

We got the Banksy book in. Put it in the window. Of course it sold immediately. Mea Culpa Jon. Mea Culpa Matthew

Remainder - The Future?

Great to see Tom McCarthy's excellent Remainder starting to receive the review coverage it richly deserves. (Guardian today)

Turned down by all the main publishers who failed to see any similarity to the pillars of our modern literary world (Wayne Rooney, Jordan, Billy Piper and Dan Brown) it has taken a long while for word of mouth to push Remainder into the limelight.

Perhaps in the future we might see an increasingly close relationship between independent bookshops and independent publishers with the common aim of making sure quirky, interesting and downright weird books still find an outlet?

Since opening 8 months ago we have already forged strong links with Eland Books, Serif, Pushkin Press, Maia, Portobello Books, Alma Books, Hearing Eye, Marion Boyars and Melville House Press to name a few...

Maybe it's already happening? Want something a little different? We're on Lower Marsh, Waterloo.

Mostly Books

Mark from Mostly Books came in to see us today - bearing gifts! (For Finn)

He and his wife Nicki have been going for just over a month...

I am constantly and regularly astounded by how bloody brilliant people in the booktrade are.

If you live anywhere remotely near Oxford check them out - in Abingdon.

www.mostly-books.co.uk

All the best, lots of luck and remember guys - KEEP IT HARDCORE

In Vogue

Kate Moss and Crockatt & Powell...What's the connection?

Rock star boyfriends?

Cocaine problems?

Nope - both in Vogue!

No I'm serious...We are in Vogue this month. Yup, among the pages and pages and pages and pages and pages and pages and pages of adverts you will (if you part with £3.60 for the opportunity to be advertised at in a "shock and awe" style) find a brief mention of our fledgling enterprise.

P121:

Headed - Boutique Bookshops

In a world of overwhelming choice, we all need a little editing. From the food we eat to the clothes we buy, it makes all the difference to know that care has gone into the selection process. It is no surprise that independently run boutique bookshops are currently enjoying a quiet renaissance. While the battle of the high-street giants rages, and it's revealed just how much publishers will pay to make their title a "bestseller", more and more of us are discovering the pleasures of real bookshops, where books are curated with the same care as artworks in a gallery.

Good stuff eh? (Thanks to the peeps at Vogue - hope it's ok to quote this...)

Haywood Hill is described as "wonderfullyramshacklee" John Sandoe as "Dickensian", Daunt in Marylebone as "elegant".

As for Crockatt & Powell:

Matthew Crockatt and Adam Powell also spotted a gap in the market , and launched Crockatt & Powell in Waterloo this year. They quickly started a monthly bookgroup, a poetry parlour and regular readings, where philosophy professor AC Grayling and Zadie Smith have taken the stand. Their passion is clear. "We stock the books we love," says Powell simply. "And anything that appeals to shameless elitist literary snobs", adds Crockatt, wryly.

So there you go. The die is cast. Waterloo is to be the new Chelsea and Lower Marsh a 21st century Kings Road.

Or something...

It was a dark and stormy night... and other tuesday morning randomness.

New Releases

'Miniscule blue flowers cascaded down the bleached ancient stones of the wall. By its foot, a fluorescence of apricots and a worn runnel of clear flowing water, lent an air of delight and abundance to the garden...

She shifted petulantly under the parasol and sipped her glass of rough red paraffino. "I know zay dumped ze veppons overboard before ze vorship clohsed, but viz all ze rardars and sattaleets today, it is too easy to votch sheeps."'

Intrigued? The Suppliant by Peter Morris, Saxum Books, 0955304105, £11. Available now at C&P

New Blog

Scott Pack has a new blog to go with his shiny new job. I'll get Marie to add it the roll of honour when she comes back.

Professionalism, Maturity and blogging

There are so many angle that blogs take. Ranting, professional, political, sentimental, angry, stoopid, widely read, hardly read. Some have agendas, some don't. I particularly liked this response from Mil Millington in an interview on this blog

As a former professional IT guy who has harnessed the beastly power of the web to get his writing known, do you have plans to employ other technologies to air your writing, such as a podcast?

Well, as I say, I didn't mean to. I was simply amusing myself - I didn't think anyone else would take any notice. And then, when they did, I still didn't regard it as a career opportunity or anything so... so... so American. As an aside, I get lots of email offering to increase the traffic to my site, in various ways. I have no interest in increasing the traffic to my site - why would I? I have a bicycle. I got it from Halfords for about £100, in a sale. I've put a reasonable amount of care and effort into making sure it's a good bicycle - I've changed the saddle, done things to the tyres and so on - and that it works well. If people see my bicycle as I go by, and take a look at it, and like it, that's fine. If they actually call out, 'Hey - like your bike! I'm pleased I saw it,' then that's nice, I suppose. However, why on earth would I feel the desire to have my bicycle seen by every person it was possible to gather round? It's my bicycle. I have it because I like riding it (and I don't have a car); I don't have it because I want people to know I have it, and gaze at it longingly.

Which is sort of the attitude I have to our blog. After a comment on a post of mine yesterday I was wondering what this blog should be about but then I remembered that C&P is an enterprise owned and run by two thirty-something, middle class layabouts who didn't like being told what to do and either couldn't be arsed or were incapable of getting a real job. (I haven't forgotten Marie. She has her own special place here and in our hearts!) Of course we take our business seriously as it's our livelihood but our inner teenagers have to escape somewhere and voila! Blogland! So in the spirit of our own C&P approach to cyberspace if you've got any pissy, condescending comments - just keep them to yourselves. Thank you.

However

The marvelous Susan Hill has added us to her blog roll. I suddenly feel an urge to grow up and take things a bit more seriously... Maybe tomorrow.

Meeeeow! or Pot, Kettle, Black.

http://forums.booktrade.info/booktrade.php?&do=news&bit=All&newsitem=8522

Obviously, Waterstone's got to Ottakers in the nick of time! They were so doooomed before the real deal came along.

('Dead' Stock is books that cannot be returned to the publisher. A bookseller can return books to the publisher between 3 and 12 months of the last invoice for that item. Anything past this is 'Dead', it eats up valuable shelf space that could be used for books that shift units and it also eats up your cashflow - generally the idea in bookselling is to sell the book a few times before you have to pay for the first copy. This, generally, never really happens.

Still, 5%!!!! I've worked in shops where the dead stock was pushing 40%! I could go into our nearest Waterstone's at Trafalgar Square and within the hour point out 10% worth of dead stock and 40% of overstocking. How bloody cheeky are they.

Actually, this kind of hubris makes me jolly annoyed indeed. A curse on all their houses)

Top Tens

Our top ten sellers at the minute are:

1: On Beauty by Zadie Smith
2: Secret Life of Trees by Colin Tudge
3: Journey by Moonlight by Antal Szerb
4: Pendragon Legend by Antal Szerb
5: The Owl and the Pussycat (Board book)
6: A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka
7: Time Will Darken It by William Maxwell
8: The Terracotta Dog by Andrea Camilleri
9: My Life by Anton Chekhov (Melville Press Edition)
10: Remainder by Tom McCarthy

Amazon have:

1: Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony
2: Gordon Ramsay's Sunday Lunch
3: The Dangerous Book For Boys
4: The Island by Victoria Hislop
5: The Abortionist's Daughter
6: The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
7: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
8: My Best Friend's Girl by Dorothy Koomson
9: Marley and Me by John Grogan
10: Positively Happy by Noel Edmonds

The "Official" Bookseller Top 10

1: The Island by Victoria Hislop
2: The Righteous Men by Sam Bourne
3: My Best Friend's Girl by Dorothy Koomson
4: On Beauty by Zadie Smith
5: Not That Kind of Girl by Catherine Alliott
6: Lifeguard by Patterson and Gross
7: If You Could See Me Now by Celia Ahern
8: Angel by Katie Price
9: I Know You Got Soul by Jeremy Clarkson
10: Making Your Mind Up by Jill Mansell

As you can see our bestsellers are a little different from most other shops.

Either we are an interesting little shop that caters to a group of people who think "outside the box" or we are doomed to miserable failure...

Hot Reads

I am very much enjoying this debate on the Guardian's Culture Vulture blog: which books are sexy and which are not?

I don't think I'd actually try to get off with someone based solely on their reading matter but I do tend to make judgements after the event, based on what books they have lying around the place. Years ago, I was delighted to catch sight, by the bedside of my new love interest, of a volume of Terry Eagleton literary criticism. At last, a thinker! Much joy ensued. Some time and much literary discussion later, I realised that his enthusiasm for arch-mysogynist Philip Roth was a definite sign that there was no future in it. (God I LOATHE "America's Greatest Living Writer" Philip Roth.) When I mentioned that Roth hates women, and he just looked baffled... Well. Farewell.

More bizarrely, I was dumped not once but twice in incidents directly related to Haruki Murukami's South of the Border, West of the Sun. Inexplicable. They read it; it was curtains. I went to a talk given by Murakami shortly after dumping number 2 (indeed, at the suggestion of the dumper, to whom I had foolishly lent the book in the first place - no future lover of mine will *ever* get his mitts on it) and intended to ask the author (a) why this had befallen me and (b) what he was going to do about it, but sadly, from my seat of row Z number 2 (and there were only two seats in row Z) I was unable to get the attention of the chair of the discussion - one Scott Pack, the Artist Formerly Known As Evil. So my question went unanswered. The nice Japanese-speaking gay man in the other half of row Z, however, did dispense the following invaluable piece of wisdom: "If you go out with Murukami men, you get dumped in Murukami ways." Sage...

In short, while it's true that reading might be sexy, it very much depends on what you read. Still, there's one thing to be said for compatible reading habits: at least you know you'll have something to talk about when you finally get bored of having sex.

From the mouths of babes...

I just had the economy explained to me by a six-year-old.

He came in, said hello, and then sat down and read Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs.

You have very good books, he said when he had finished. Where do you get them from?

We get them from the people who make them, I said.

So the money is recycled, said the boy. You buy the books and you have to pay for them. Then you sell the books. You can take the money from the books and spend it on more books, or you can spend it on your house. If you spend it on your house then the people you buy from can buy books. So the money is recycled.

Um... that's right, I said.

Do you have any more Harry and the Dinosaurs books? he said.

Skylines

Something was troubling me on my recent trip to Belgium. Ouside of Brussels every town or city I visited or passed on a train had one disturbing feature that I had never picked up on in this country even though it is a more than common occurence. Without fail the tallest structure in every place, the highest most dominant feature of the skyline was over 400 years old. At no point in the subsequent 400 years had any of the townspeople sought to compete or to exceed the accomplishments of their medieval or renaissance predecessors by building higher or bigger. And then I realised that of all the cities in the world I have found home all of them have superceeded their historical roots. You may not like glass and steel but to me it signifies engagement and technology and desire and excitement. I may appreciate Bruges or Salisbury or Rome even but I would never want to live in them. Their stifling reverence of the past or their lack of ambition would suffocate me. I guess that's why I live in London - pockets of the past and frighteningly modern at the same time it feels like a real living breathing city. One of our highest points is a ferris wheel - how cool is that?

I think there might be a book in this. Mmm. I can feel a list coming on too. British towns and cities where the highest point is from a building or structure pre 1901. Any takers? Or is there a website that lists the highest buildings in each town? There must be.

Finn establishes the difference between day and night despite confusing signals from the adult and mechanical world...

After almost three weeks in the world certain things were becoming clear to Finn:

1: Though named after a giant he was, if truth be told, rather on the small side.

2: Mum was great.

3: Dad was daft.

The fourth thing that Finn felt close to understanding involved certain changes, cyclical in their nature, that could be observed in any 24 hour period.

During the day an orb of fire blazed away making the beans wilt and mum fret.

At night a paler, cooler, sphere hung in the sky that, though less energetic, appeared to Finn to be a benevolent friend.

There were more subtle differences. During the day dad wasn't quite so daft. With a good shot of coffee in the morning pops could be quite articulate. At night daft dad tried to put nappies on upside down. He tended to sway and stumble and groan.

Similarly mum was more grumpy at night. She seemed less eager to feed Finn, slower and more bumbly.

These differences Finn had noticed despite the best efforts of the adult and mechanical world to confuse him. For example daft dad had a habit of singing (badly) to Finn the following song:

Night and day
You are the one
Only you beneath the moon
And under the sun

Whether near to me or far
It's no matter darling where you are
I think of you
Night and day

This suggested there was no difference between night and day BUT THERE WAS.

Then there were the feeble, mechanical lights, that tried to imitate the sun as they dangled from the ceiling. It could be night BUT STILL LIGHT. There was something wrong there and certainly potential for confusion for one whose brain was as yet only partially developed.

Showing signs of his future heroic status Finn stood by his careful observations and decided that yes there WAS a difference between night and day.

Sooner or later he would change his behaviour and do as mum and dad clearly wished - sleep at night and play by day. But he felt it was important to establish who was boss. He would let them sweat and groan a while longer.

After all, he liked to wander in the dark at night with dad in the garden, even if it meant listening to more nonsensical songs!

ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok here he is...

FINN

Thanks to Toe -B for the snazzy Dylan suit...

A lovely moment in an otherwise hot and sweaty day...

A lovely lady wants a ticket for Zadie - but we've sold out. Bummer.

Then she buys two of our lovely Melville press novellas and says we have just become her favourite bookshop.

She lives in New York (bummer) but also said we were better than all the indi shops she knows in New York too!

WOW!

It's SO NICE when we meet people that really GET what we're trying to do.

Read this and get angry

Elif Shafak, the Turkish feminist author - and not only one of C&P's biggest sellers, but also an incredibly nice, gracious woman who gave one of the best talks we've ever had here - is the latest in a long line of writers to be put on trial for 'insulting Turkishness'. It's not even her who's done the insulting - it's a fictional character in one of her novels. But that, it seems, is enough. If convicted, Shafak, who is six months pregnant, faces up to three years in jail.

Read more about it here. Then start writing angry letters.

As the song said "There ain't no tits on the radio" - There are now!

Yes, Crockatt & Powell will be cominatcha over the FM airwaves on Thursday, thanks to Resonance FM 104.4

We have an slot from 7-8pm and we'll be playing recordings of a couple of our events.

If lots of people listen it may become a regular slot so tune in loyal peeps.

Hear the HUGELY talented Pete Hobbs reading from The Short Day Dying and I could Ride All Day In My Cool Blue Train then be grilled (nicely) by our very own Marie.

After that we have Segun Afolabi and Tony D'Souza reading from and talking about their books A Life Elsewhere and Whiteman, once again our Marie keeps them in line as stereotypes about Africa are destroyed by our valiant authors...

I have, in true budget radio style, agreed to MC the show so if you want to send a shout out to any of yer mates call me on 04774 333 973.

ThisreadinggoesouttothemanliketheColindowninHackney - sound mate! You're bonkers you are Geeze!

(That last bit was a joke - the rest is true!)

Grown men do cry.

Anyone who just watched Tiger Woods win the open and not shed a tear is indeed a heartless son of a bitch.

(ps A Guilty Secret: I love golf. I don't play much and i despise it's middleclass status but when you're on the course and you strike a 7 iron off the fairway cleanly there is almost no better feeling.)

And, as an aside, the term 'Links' Golf refers to the land between the sea and arible land that was useless to everybody. So, democratically, it was decided to use this waste land as a game knocking a tiny ball around trying to find a hole. Golf is a product of the Scottish Enlightenment and should be revered as such. That it has been taken over by executives is a diminishment of its noble origins. But, Tiger wins and more and more people are interested in the game. Let's wrest the control of this marvelous sport from the pringle-wearing nazis and return it to the true faithful who love it for what it is...

Keep The Ampersand Flying

Seeing as we seem to be talking more about films than books at the moment, I watched the adaptation of Orwell's Keep The Aspidistra Flying last night, a really fun film starring a poignantly fresh-faced Richard E Grant and the enduringly beautiful Helena Bonham Carter. It's quite hard to tell that it's Orwell if you don't know, as it's light and funny and sexy, and nobody is tortured by a fascist regime and there are no pigs in it. The only real clue is the cheerful deconstruction of the British class system, and of course the notion that there are far too many potted plants in this world (cf the famous spider plant at the door to Room 101.) It was a lovely way to pass an hour and a half, but really I mention it because the climax of the film involves Grant, as aspiring poet Gordon Comstock, hitting the absolute bottom rung of social degredation, and his girlfriend and sister having to come and rescue him before he degenerates into a stagnant pool of filth and proletarianism. Said bottom rung? Working in a bookshop in Lambeth. "I couldn't possibly go there by myself," says a horrified Bonham-Carter as the long-suffering girlfriend. "Even the tomcats walk in pairs." Still, at least Comstock appears to enjoy working in the shop. All he does all day is read the paper, eat crisps, drink tea with the neighbours and flirt with the customers. I was going to say that things have changed a lot since then - you no longer need a police escort to get safely through SE1 - but now that I think of it, maybe it's more of a case of plus ca change...

Finn and the Quest for Quality Coffee in Camberwell

Dawn came with rosy fingers then scarpered sharpish in the face of a couple of almighty farts from our diminutive darling - Finn.

Daft daddy had also been awakened by Finn's digestive disaster and began to help with the morning ablutions. Unfortunately the large but foolish one was not really a morning person. It had taken a mere 13 days in the world for this to become clear and now, as the big berk tried to push Finn's head through a hole that was clearly designed for an arm, Finn resolved to take action. Coffee - that's what they needed.

A short while later they were off, Finn directing the giant fool with a series of relaxed grunts and snorts, towards the shops in Camberwell Green.

Everything would have been cool if daft dad could be persuaded to drink instant coffee but sadly his taste in beverages was as particular/peculiar as his taste in books. It had to be quality coffee, ideally picked by happy organic farmers and fairly traded too. But this was Camberwell the town that boasted not only a huge £1 shop but also an even larger 99p store. Quality anything was hard to come by.

The newsagent was pleased to meet Finn. She had a paper but no quality coffee.

Next they tried Mr Cruzon's fruit and veg shop. Finn loved Mr Cruzon whose favoritee things were small cats and caramel flavored yoghurt. After fighting through a gaggle of cooing strangers, all of whom exhibited symptoms of mental illness of various levels of severity, they found the coffee.

There were two kinds of Greek coffee, Polish coffee, Palestinian coffee with chicory in it or Douwe Egberts which was the closest thing to quality coffee they were likely to find within a mile of the green. But Douwe Egberts was a large corporate brand and Dumb Dad liked small things - probably explaining his ridiculous attempt to make a living by running an independent bookshop.

So Egberts was off the list. One of Mr Cruzon's friends began to explain how to make Greek coffee using gestures, Greek and random English words. The large but foolish one, still smothered in a pre-coffee fog, nodded and said things like "Ah I see" while clearly not taking any of the explanation in.

Eventually they left having also purchased a melon for mum who was snoozing at home. She always seemed tired though Finn couldn't understand why...

To cut a rather long story short dad managed to make Greek coffee in a pan and woke up enough to read the paper in the garden with Finn. As he put the Middle East crisis into context for our tiny titan we can pause to reflect:

If children are the future but adults act like children - will there be a future for Finn and all the other little things?

Back to my roots

I honestly can't remember the last time I felt such sheer visceral delirious enjoyment of a book as Hollywood Animal by Joe Eszterhas. It's nearly 800 pages but I've gone through it in a few days and I'm a slowwwwww reader. Eszterhas is a screenwriter responsible for such gems as Flashdance, Jagged Edge, Music Box (actually a great movie), Basic Instinct and erm, Showgirls. The book is by turns egotistical, mawkish, insulting, funny, gossipy, libelous, moving and powerful. Not what you'd expect at all looking at the cover.

I remember the first time my dad offered to take me to the 'pictures' when I was 5. All I could imagine was a big white room with empty, gilded picture frames on the walls and I didn't want to go. But we went anyway and saw Esacpe to Witch Mountain and that was it - my love affair with movies began. In the following years it was Star Wars (boring), Close Encounters (Mind-blowing), Alien (I didn't actually go but my pops came home and relayed in all its glorious, gory detail the stomach-exploding scene) and ET (A bit soft but I remember standing in the queue and dad asking loudly what I thought ET stood for - The Extra TESTICLE, ha ha. I was embarrassed). As a teenager through to my early twenties I secretly wanted to be a director. When I read a book I saw it as a film. I still believe my as yet unmade The Idiot by Dostoevsky would have been one of the greatest films ever. But it was only after I started to read about hollywood and it's machinations and the type of person you had to be to make it I realised with sadness but some relief that the directors life was not to be. I returned to my other great love - making stuff. (How did I ever end up a bookseller?)

Anyway, still given the choice between a film I want to see and a book I want to read the movie always come first (how DID I become a bookseller?). It's no wonder I really love the Eszterhas book - it's the best of both my worlds.

ps Reading my last few posts I think I need a break. I'm off to Brussels for 4 days on monday. This time I really will be going to the Pictures - the Breughel room in the gallery and I shall try and find some peace and humility.

lord.rings.whatever.

Warning: This post contains very strong language. Please don't complain about it.

Disclaimer: I've only ever read the first 12 pages of Lord of the Rings before becoming so bored I wanted to chew my fingers off. The following is based upon my viewing of the final installment of the film franchise seen tonight on the usually reliable sky movies.

So... we want to re-establish the dominion of men after the all powerful and all evil control of the lord Sauron - the big eye in the sky - or as we all really know it as, that giant flaming cunt. Let's face it, it's not an eye, the source of all evil according to Tolkien and the world of men is a huge, all-seeing engorged vagina. An all powerful cunt, forever distant atop a towering yet blackened phallus, a phallus never quite allowed to touch the almighty power of the all-seeing cunt. And who does this world of men send to defeat the vagina - tiny men. Tiny, midget, hairy hobbits. And what do they need to defeat this cunt - A Ring. The symbol of marriage, partnership, domesticity and the vagina's control of men. To destroy the cunt tiny, yet strong, men must toss this ring into the fires of Doom. To destroy the power of the engorged vagina midgets must travel to Doom, melt the ring and recover the kingdom of men. Mmmm. (These tiny men have huge feet. You know what they say about the size of a mans foot)

But it's the arbitrariness of fantasy fiction I can't take either. Faced with an enemy (of a black, let's not go down the race track... evil army) when required the good white men can summon an army of ghosts. Erm... where'd they come from? And then a fleet of giant eagles appear just when you need them. And of course you've always got the pointy-eared elves to help out. And those darky orcs seem to die pretty darn easy too.

LOTR was voted britains favourite book recently. It's not mine. I fucking can't stand it.

I Want My MTV

The modern beat combo Dirty Pretty Things are filming their latest pop video outside the shop. I hope they hurry up as they're scaring away customers with their drug-addled rock star behaviour!

Here begins a chronicle and account of the legendary exploits of the small but mighty bean known throughout the land as Finn...

One morning Finn awoke and knew his kin, the beans, were in danger. Snoozing the evening before he had a vision of Suzanne Charlton pointing to some numbers and then whilst asleep the sun had blazed brightly in his dreams.

Those little orange flowers that one day, with care and water and not too much sun, would become good green beans were doomed to be frazzled without swift intervention from their protector Finn.

But how could our tiny hero reach them? The beans grew in a far away land at the bottom of the garden. The grassy plains were wide and full of insects. The jealous and potentially vicious cat lurked in the bushes. He was sure to take any opportunity to dispatch his newborn rival. Despite being a legendary hero famed throughout the land as a mighty warrior Finn was finding it hard to hold his own head steady on his shoulders. (In fact the most heroic exploit so far achieved by the tiny titan was rather embarrassing. Finn could wee on his own head! But that was no help to anyone.)

But where strength fails, wit prevails!

Bawling at the top of his little lungs Finn summoned the tired and sluggish giant - dad. He yelled on as the dimbo went through the usual routine designed to settle Finn - nappy, burping etc.

Finally, as Finn knew he would, daft daddy strapped our hero onto his chest and opened the back door. It was cool outside but already the first rays of sun were shining on the vegetable patch.

"I think we'll water those beans" said the big fool and off they set, watering can in hand (there was a ban on), flying over the grassy plains high above the p'd off cat to water veg for all mankind.

Here ye how the poets tell of the day Finn saved the beans by use of his wit and guile!

And they all ate fresh garden produce happily ever after...

Oh crap.

I just went to update our website and it appears my computer has had a nervous breakdown and lost all the web files. Bugger.

Neologism

Zidane (zih-dahn) noun 1 An act of random madness 2 A particularly satisfying legal term denoting justice 3 An uncommonly elegant person 4 Revenge verb 1 To perform an act of random madness 2 To take revenge 3 To seek justice 4 To suavely flaneur down the street
- PHRASES n 1 That was a real Zidane 2 Zidane is served 3 Phwooar look at that Zidane over there 4 Zidane is a dish best served cold v 1 That blokes gonna f***ing Zidane him if he's not careful 2 'And so Monte Cristo had finally zidaned Monsieur le Comte' 3 Mr Jeffrey Archer: M'lud, I only seek to zidane myself against these heinous accusations 4 She was zidaneing across the boulevard in the most beautiful Chanel suit.

I Heart Buses

8.20am. The 468 is at a bus stop taking on passengers. A tiny schoolchild with a huge, heavy backpack is running for his life up the road in front of the bus trying to catch the drivers eye. Just as he gets to the doors the bus pulls off without him. Nice. I felt a 'Zidane' moment coming on...

(When I was a kid I had my own classroom with my own desk where I could leave all my books. In a lot of schools these days kids don't have the same luxury. They have to carry all their stuff with them in those oversized backpacks like little academic nomads)

Note to Ken: Trams please!

Welcome to our world.

Hello there young baby crockatt! Looking forward to making your aquaintance.

It's at times like these when we turn our thoughts to all the good things in life, all the joys and miracles and all the things we can teach young Finn as he finds his way in this crazy world.

We have to teach him of the kindness of people, of generosity and spirit. We have to let him know that depite all the horrors Finn will see as he grows up that we are basically good and that love will prevail. With one important exception...

When being abused by a 6ft 5in eye-tie defender it is perfectly acceptable to headbutt him in the chest as hard as you possibly can. Yes! Get in there my son! Zizou, c'est magnifique!

(I think I might be alone in my admiration for Zidane's extraordinary act of violence but to me it wasn't the petulant act of a dilettante Rooney but the result of 20 years of abuse, much of it rascist. It was the last act of defiance of an extraordinary career. Not for Zidane the pathetic ignominy of defeat on penalties and a quiet sloping off into the Berlin night. No, he'd had enough and he wasn't going to take it anymore. There's more psychology and drama in this one moment than in any number of world cups.)

Sorry Finn, don't listen to me, I'm a bad person. Listen to your Mum and Dad, they're much nicer.

Once again, welcome to our world.

It's a Boy!

Mother and baby and Dad all said to be doing fine. We haven't heard from Matthew what they're calling him yet, so there's still time to place your bets. Mine's for 'Fyodor'...

How did that happen?

We've got a couple of events coming up in the shop in July. The week after next Perrier Award-winning comedian Daniel Kitson is doing 3 nights as a warm up before taking his new show to Edinburgh and then the week after we've got an evening with recent Orange winner Zadie Smith (who doesn't usually do this sort of thing).

We don't actually know any famous people (actually I bet Marie does) but I guess we know people (customers) who know famous people. I s'pose it helps being in central London too. Anyway, as you can imagine we're quietly chuffed and looking forward to it all so many thanks to those who made it possible.

Oh, and Matthew's wife went into labour today. Crockatt & Powell & Sons (or Daughters)

Honestly, you turn your back for a minute... How did that happen!

Litro

A while back this bloke came in talking about a plan he had to publish an A4 sheet once a week that had a short story on it. These stories would be sent in by the public. The sheet was to be called Litro and would be distributed to folk at tube stations.

We had a lot of nutters through the doors in the early days.

But this chap is a cut above...

Check this out.

Jaws of Vengeance!

Marie and I have just seen a crane eating a building.

Words alone cannot really do this justice but the old concrete bunker on the roundabout at the end of Westminster Bridge Road is BEING EATEN BY A CRANE.

It has jaws and eyes and water sprouting from it's articulated neck. It looks a little bit like this.

I had to stop and stare and laugh like a 10 year old boy.

I've just seen a crane eat a building.

Unfortunate

As we bang on about with nauseating regularity, we are capable of getting just short of a million titles into the shop next day. (Obviously, not all at once. Not if we also wanted to get into the shop ourselves and unpack the boxes. But you catch my drift.) Customer ordering is our *thing*. (Suck it and see on the link to your right!) Anyway, there is a very lovely friend of my parents who lives just round the corner from the shop, and who comes in I'm sure partly out of loyalty to me. In fact, increasingly I'd say she comes in *entirely* out of loyalty to me, because, despite the fact that we can - and do - get almost anything for our other customers, we can never, ever, ever get the books that she wants. They're not even that obscure. They're just always reprinting, or just slipped out of print so fast that we don't know they're out of print when she comes and asks for them (for any other customer the computer would say NO) - essentially, because of some dreadful misalignment of the stars we are giving her, and her alone, TERRIBLE service - and I can see her smile becoming more strained and tight every time I say 'I'm so sorry, we just can't get that for you...' And she is the *only* one. She is lovely and we are rubbish. Why?

e-book musings

Just read an interesting article on the e-reader and its potential and I got to thinking on the other side of the argument for a change as to just how would you make money from such a thing?

As I'm not a publisher I've just been plucking figures out of thin air. I'm more than happy to stand corrected if none of the below stacks up...

Let's take a £6.99 mass market paperback thriller, the kind of thing I guess would be used on the reader.

The publisher will sell this to a large retailer for £3.50. The author gets their royalty (and here I must profess my unforgivable ignorance in the matter of how much percentage the author takes but I'll hazard a guess at a pound for a 6.99 book [this only underlines the fundamental differences between authors and retailers - writers, most retailers aren't really your friends no matter how much the big boys go on but that is really a whole other post])

That leaves £2.50 to the publisher. Printing, wharehousing, distribution and admin must amount to atleast £2 (surely?) leaving 50p profit on the book.

So, how do you price an e-book download? Working backwards we have £1 to the author, 50p profit to the publisher, no physical costs but running and managing a vast website of millions of titles out of which only a few thousand or so turn a profit ain't cheap so I reckon, conservatively, another £1.

So, the minimum price for a download would have to be atleast £2.50. But what about the question of value? A 3 minute single from i-tunes is 79p. A book which you may end up spending 2-3 weeks with demands a certain price point to give it the appearance of importance and value in your purchase. Too low and people will dismiss it as cheap and not worthwhile and too expensive and you might as well have the book. Which is why you can see from the article that a publisher would aim to come in at about 20-25% below cover price - between £4 and £4.50 then for a download.

But, a cheap mass market paperback is that price from asda. Anyway, back to value.

The Sony i-reader looks at being priced between £175-£225. If you're saving £2 a book then you have to download 100 books to break even (and the i-reader only holds 80 titles). A serious book reader may still take close to 2 years to get to that point and serious book readers love browsing in book shops so they ain't your market. Your average reader will probably take a good 5 years to break even by which point your machine is close to obsolete. I guess this is why the Sony i-reader can surf the net and play music too. Let's face it, the i-reader is aimed at men of a certain age who read certain magazines and just love gadgets. I'm Sony and this is my market, I'm happy but, if the i-reader is only being used for reading for half of its time then there aren't many books being downloaded and the publishers aren't making any money.

Which brings me to why people love i-pods. Listening to a song tends to remind you of another song. On your i-pod accessability is everything. When you're reading you tend to be lost in that world, accessability is redundant. Collating all your music into one piece tends to make geeks of the best of us - who doesn't compile playlists and top tens for every concievable occasion? This is a fundamental difference to books. Ok people make book lists and can be semi-autistic in their attitudes but there is a question of time and space involved in reading a book that the pop song delivers instantly. (Or, a quiet spliff as opposed to freebasing cocaine but I wouldn't know anything about that) And something not entirely compatible with the convenience of the i-pod. (Even so it's still a darn sight quicker to turn to page 239 rather than clicking on the wheely thing on the i-pod)

So, I'm a publisher now and I'm asking myself where's my market for this e-book thing? Answer: Over 80% of the publishing business is made from academic publishing and text books. All this guff about Waterstone's and high streets and Independents is a mere drop in the ocean compared to where my profits are. What are my costs in academic publishing? - small print runs and distribution. Electronic delivery takes care of that. Printing, paper and again distribution costs for work books - you'll be able to write on the screen. Interactivity. Ok, you've lost those sales but you've more than gained from the other savings. Also, if Bill Gates does get round to giving away his billions and equiping children in developing countries with these things then that is a good thing to do. All of a sudden the e-book makes sense. Cheaper for the people who need the information while still returning profits to publishers. Hooray, everybody's happy.

So, the small part of the publishing industry that we at C&P deal with - the creamy bit (or is it scum that rises to the top?) - just won't be affected at all by this e-book thing. England are going to win the world cup too. (But I will bet my own money on France beating Brazil)

The e-book is dead. Long live the e-book! Time and a place innit?

...or as Mark E Smith said "Repetition Repetition Repetition"

Last Friday I was listening to some Steve Reich CDs a customer lent us and generally approaching the trance-like state only the finest quality boredom can provide when I spotted a proof on the floor by my left foot.

It was a book called Remainder by a writer I had never heard of - Tom McCarthy. I began to read it. I closed the shop early. I read it in the half-light that filtered through the lowered shutters. I could not put it down. The music and the book and my thoughts all blended together. Booky bliss!

Several hours later it was finished and I was thrilled. Wow. I was straight on the net only to discover our great friend Short Term Memory Loss was there ahead of me...

His review is good so I'll spare you mine. Suffice to say this is THE MOST EXCITING BOOK TO BE SET IN SOUTH LONDON IN RECENT YEARS. (by exciting I mean in the Kafkaesque Ice Pick way - this book will split your skull) (That's a good thing!)

It's out next week.

You need to read it...

Chinny Chin Chin

Here we are in the Times, or if you want to see the photo - and don't blame me if the horror of it gets burned directly onto your retina - you will have to buy the real thing, and turn to page 13 (unlucky for some) of the Knowledge section. They have helpfully put a photo of the three characters from Black Books next to our *enormous* picture so that you can make comparisons. I am Fran. The boys can fight it out amongst themselves for the other two.

Anyway it's actually a fair representation of what we said - accuracy from the press? surely not - but I would like to point out a few minor errata:
- I never "giggle".
- I'm not sure that Matthew was "smiling" when he said "How often in a chain would you get the staff telling you to f*** off or flouncing out of the shop".
- We do get customers, I am going to be in so much trouble about that.
- We usually only have the one chin each.

Aside from that though, it's pretty funny, and a worryingly revealing portrayal of what we're really like. But I'm not sure I actually wanted anybody to know.

PS If you're wondering which book I'm reading in the picture, it's Peter Hobbs's excellent The Short Day Dying which deserves to be bought by more people, and I'm only sad that you can't see the cover in the photo.

Best Week Yet...

...and it's only Friday.

AC Grayling talk in the shop...

Vast improvements in local beer (pub next door)...

Football on telly every night...

Customers who not only love the shop but have started lending us CDs (Thanks Mr S!) and making us coffee in the morning (on delivery of a box of books - thanks Sue!)

All in all a bloody good week.

Thanks people, enjoy the weekend.

Judgement Day pt 2

Just had our first negative customer in 6 months.

'You don't have many books for the size of the space do you'

'erm... we like it like that. Customers seem to respond to the light and space'

'ohh. When I worked in books there was more of them. Bye then'

'Bye to you too and f*** you very much!'

Atleast being the boss I can give people dirty looks and get away with it. (The first dirty look in 6 months might I hasten to add). Although I guess I need to be careful as every dirty look given only condemns me to the next circle of hell below. At this rate I'll be keeping Judas company in no time. Behave yourself, boy.

Judgement Day or, why nothing matters anyway.

Have just ordered a book from America from our new favourite small publishers.

The book is called Divine Destruction and one of its theses is that America's opposition to climate control policies is the influence of far-right dominion theologists who believe there is no reason to protect the environment given the imminence of the Second Coming of Christ.

Gulp, oh christ. I'm scared now. Pass the crack pipe. There's really no reason to carry on. I'm almost certainly doomed to a flaming eternity of damnation and flesh-eating demons upon god's holy judgement.

Or maybe not.

Good News!

Everybody knows booksellers like a drink. (Marie is out now buying booze for the AC Grayling event tonight) Our shop is conveniently situated next door to a pub called the Camel. Until very recently it was a bit of a crap pub. In other words there were no decent ales on tap, a problem for a beer lover like myself.

But now things have changed! They have IPA and Abbot on tap!

IPA is a little whimpy but certainly worth a jar or two on a hot afternoon.

Abbot is among my current favourites - strong, tasty and traditional.

Of course the best pint around is London Pride, soon to be the only real ale brewed in the capital. And Fullers is a family company, still clinging doggedly to their independence in the face of interest from the big boys...

serendipity

I have just discovered that the theme music to the genius black comedy Nighty Night is from an Ennio Morricone score for a 1973 western called My Name Is Nobody about a young gunslinger obsessed with Henry Fonda. Why does it take this long to find out an absolute gem of information? Why didn't I know this already? Sometimes I hate 'In' jokes. It can be so annoying when you're not in on the gag. Smart arses. Did anyone else know this?

(I've got the tune on i-tunes. How can I post it?)

Roll on winter

Oh god there's even more cyclists now. Please let the weather get worse so their numbers are reduced. More cyclists is leading to more annoyance and drivers losing their patience. Especially the no. 159 that tried to kill me this morning by accelerating past and pulling into a bus stop when I was only 30 yards from it.

I'll have to go and calm down by the sea side again now. The only good thing about summer is you get to swim in the sea, one of the most therapeutic and relaxing things I can think of. Went to Walton-on-the-Naze on sunday and took to the water. Bliss.

Then I got to thinking of all the bodies of water I've swam in. I feel a competition coming on...

North Sea, English Channel, Mediterranean, Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean, South China Sea, Tasman Sea, Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea, Atlantic Ocean, Loch Lomond, Lake Taupo, erm..

Can anyone top that?

Maths attack!

An unfortunate coincidence

As previously mentioned, the boys and I are going to be in the Times next Saturday, taking part in their 'Ask The Experts' section, where they show a panel of so-called experts a film related to their area of knowledge and ask them to comment. We watched an episode of Black Books and the boys said very funny things. I, less so.

Anyway, last Saturday I was trying to explain the feature to my parents and they didn't understand it, so I got the Times and showed them that issue's example of the feature in question. Unfortunately, on that occasion the field of expertise turned out to be porn. There was a picture and everything.

I'm still not entirely sure my mother understands what I am going to be doing in the Times on Saturday.

In the cold light of day

You know, Serbia & Montenegro didn't half give Argentina a lot of room to play. They aren't going to get a 'defence' as generous as that again.

Thanks to the excellent and underwhelmed Gordon Strachan last night for keeping hope alive.

I had that Dave the Cabbie in my audience the other night...

Was at Morley College last night for a reading by Will Self of his new novel The Book of Dave with some Q & A after. Self was his usual acerbic, engaging and entertaining self. He really loves reading from his own work often lingering on certain phrases and words for emphasis and revelling in the vernacular and in accents.

The book is about a London cabbie called Dave who writes a misogynistic, rascist, homophobic rant and buries it in his ex-wifes garden addressed to his son. Several centuries later his book is discovered after London is drowned from rising sea-levels by the inhabitants of the island of Ham - the only part of the city left above sea-level - and taken as a holy book.

The first reading of the novel was set in the near past and was about Dave picking up an american fare. The conversation and Dave's inner monologue are as you'd expect from a bigot and very funny.

After the readings there were some questions from the floor. After a few people spoke, one bloke sitting on his own with a fedora and a cane raised his hand and said,

'My name's Dave and I'm a cabbie and no cabbie would ever say those things'

Much heated debate ensued over the nature of plausibility and truth in fiction. Self defended himself vigorously with the pointed dissection of Dave's points like a seasoned barrister. Unfortunately, Dave's position descended into personal abuse finally calling Self and his like a cheroot-smoking, middle-class intellectual fancy boy.

Oh Dear. I'm afraid Dave the Cabbie only made Dave the Cabbie an only too plausible bitter, anger-filled figure. One-nil to Self.

We have signed copies in store now.

Crap at Maths

It's not big or clever to be crap at maths. I just embarassed myself by claiming 7 x 8 was 63 when in fact it isn't...(7 X 9 is 63 dumb ass!)

My uncle is a bloody maths professor in Zurich!

Why am I so totally rubbish with numbers?

Bah. Can't spell either. Hurumph.

Come on techy types! Invent a chip you can plug into my brain and make me a maths whizz/spelling geek...

Ask the Experts? You asked for it!

The Times are coming to see us this evening.

We are going to be part of a series they do called Ask The Experts. The idea is simple and fun. Find a group of professionals (the experts) and show them some popular TV. (Think doctors watching ER) Then record the comments made by the experts to see how accurate the TV is. It's all for fun and very light hearted...

We are going to watch an episode of Black Books.

Trouble is, where most people think BB is a comedy, it is in fact a deadly serious documentary. Bookselling in small shops is EXACTLY LIKE THAT!

Did we really try and fight Scott Pack? Oh dear...

Speechless...

A letter came in the post this morning:

Dear Sirs,

HALF PRICE STAFF

As fellow members of the FSB, I wanted to let you know about a very well kept secret that enables you to get high calibre staff at extraordinarily low rates - impossibly low you might think.

How would you like to employ people with:

• No National Minimum Wage
• No PAYE tax
• No employers NI
• No contract of employment
• No holiday pay
• No sick pay

There is a special, but little known dispensation written in to EC and UK law. This allows certain people to work in the uk without their employer having to comply with many aspects of the usual raft of employment legislation and regulations.

Many people who are in university courses all over Europe are eligible for this dispensation. The need to carry out work assignments as part of their training. This enables you to employ high calibre workers for just £7000 per annum - all in.

It's something that large blue chip employers have been benefiting from for decades.

Yours Sincerely

Peter Harrison
Managing Director

...erm, where to start? I knew this kind of thing went on but when you become a boss yourself and are offered slaves in order to make a bit more profit...

Unbelievable.

(I refuse to link to these people but if you're the kind of person who likes seeking out extreme material on the web then here's the place to go: www.placement-uk.com)

How to cope with this hot weather

1. Buy two books.
2. Read one.
3. Fan yourself with the other.
4. And then when it's winter, you can burn them for warmth. Or rip them up and stuff the pages down your trousers for insulation.

Books: *so* versatile. You'd never get this many uses out of an electronic hand-held reading device.

Summer in Baden-Baden

It's not book of the month any more so I can now reveal that Summer in Baden-Baden was our world cup super special prize trigger - and none of you literary folk noticed!

Had anyone e-mailed or phoned or spoken to us in the shop about the reasons for our May book of the month being Summer in Baden-Baden and whether this had anything to do with where England would be based in the build up to the World Cup they would have won a SPECTACULAR prize...(just imagine whatever you most desire - that was the prize you could have had! Don't you feel gutted?)

You have to be sharp in the indy bookselling came. I know I keep banging on about it but it's not just us - you can all be involved too...

So keep your wits about you and watch out for more "hidden" and "secret" prize-winning opportunities.

Sunshine, cycling and psychopaths

The clement weather and loads of recent publicity have brought the fair-weather cyclists onto the roads. As a die-hard who likes to ride in the depths of winter with horizontal rain I have mixed feelings about this. It's a good thing that people get out of their cars, take the air and attempt healthy living. On the other hand they don't half get in your way. Now, I've been known to jump the odd red - at a pedestrian crossing with no pedestrians or at a junction I know well enough where the timing of the lights sequence has been grafted into my brain - but recently I have taken to stopping at the red and it feels much better. And now I can see how annoying it is when some idiot cyclist bombs through without a care for their own safety or that of any passing pedestrian. They really should stop. But when they do stop at the lights it really is VERY annoying when you're at the front and some flip-flop wearing (please don't wear sandals when cycling. Do you want to die?) saunterer danders up and pulls in front of you when it's blindingly obvious I'm faster and will only overtake anyway which I don't particularly like doing as it's dangerous. (Sandal wearing cyclists also tend to wear their ill-fitting helmets at a jaunty angle. This is more dangerous than not wearing one. I never wear a helmet and in 20 years of cycling and 3 dozen falls I've never hit my head yet. If a car hits you then you're screwed no matter what, helmet or no helmet)

There is one good spot for overtaking though. This morning I was waiting by the lights at the bottom of Kennington road. Typically every cyclist who came behind pulled in front of me until I was at the back of a group of about 15. When the lights went green off we went. Some guys who fancied themselves set off at a pace and everyone else just sauntered on. Kennington road is just shy of a mile long and 2 lanes so you've got plenty of time to build up. By half way I'd passed everyone. It was great. I felt like Steve Ovett at the back of the pack in the 1500m with one lap to go and slowly but surely just leaving them all for dust. I know it's childish and blokey but I don't care. You've got to take your pleasures where you can find them.

But as for the psychopath... waiting to pull onto Herne Hill, a road with some seriously fast traffic, a man passed in front of me cycling one-handed (not good at the best of times). In the other hand he was holding his daughter! She was sitting on his knee! His leg was going up and down! He had his spare arm wrapped around her waist holding her on! He had NO control! He should go to jail for recklessly endangering his own childs life!

Not much about books but I'm looking forward to this coming into the shop soon.

Oh we do like to be beside the seaside...

I have been away with my swollen (pregnant) wife to Broadstairs in Kent. First time there - what a place!

Lovely little seaside town, favourite spot of one Charles Dickens. Bleak House is there on the cliffs and there's a musum and everything. (Of course we didn't go. I have to confess to an A-Level induced loathing of Dickens. I like some of his essays, Night Thoughts in particular, but the novels I find hard work. I'm saving them for my later years.)

We paddled, I drank plenty of good Kentish Ale, we read (I'm reading The London Hanged by Peter Linebaugh, Mary is loving Flea Palace by the brilliant Elif Shafak) we ate fresh meat pies. We saw Peter "Mr London" Ackroyd twice!

I'm not surprised Peter Ackroyd likes Broadstairs. It is stuck in a little Victorian timewarp but not a dull Victorian timewarp. There were all sorts there. Not just old ladies clustered round the bandsatnd (though they were there) but loads of lager swiling lads and ladettes too - a real cross-section of London life...gone to the seaside...

We will be back.

Did I mention the meat pies?

I know it's late but...

...these are the things that keep me awake at night.

Why (at time of writing) has Matthew's profile been viewed 55 times when Adam's and mine have only been viewed a precisely equal 32 times each? What is so interesting about Matthew? Why doesn't everyone want to know about me the most? Why why why why why? How am I supposed to get to sleep now? I will have to resort to drugs or alcohol, or if that won't work, reading a couple of pages of WG Sebald. It's not fair to do this to me, you know.

Mergers & Acquisitions

Yaaaaawwwwwwwnnnnnn. Waterstones buys Ottakers blah blah blah.

I Agree.

I Disagree. Or as the mobile ad at the moment goes, how much time have you got?

Rather than bore you with some rambling entry I thought I'd offer a few bullet points in response to the Iain Dale piece and it's comments:

• I wish Second Hand book buyers would realise that a book has to be bought new at some point in order to become second-hand (That's you Mr. Chap of a certain age with a rucksack on. Just what are you carrying in that thing? You know who you are)
• There will always be independent bookshops. Every generation of bookseller will throw up a few idiots who think they could do a better job or are pathologically incapable of being fastracked up the greasy pole of management. (Naming no names)
• WE'RE NOT OVERPRICED! 99.8% of our stock is the same price as every other terrestrial retailer.
• It's true, if every independent bookseller went bust then there wouldn't be any great material change to the consumer. However, I had a dream a few nights ago where I was living in a totalitarian state. I was really enjoying it too as I didn't have to make any decisions, I was told what to do and had no responsibilities. At the end of the dream after the regime had been hunting down middle-aged ladies in tracksuits I found I was now a target. I was machine-gunned to DEATH. There is a message there somewhere.
• A**z*n cannot live by books alone (Home & Garden!? Electronics & Photo?!) C&P are not in it for the riches folks.
• Supermarkets are NOT faster, better, cheaper.
• I understand why Waterstones gets better discounts than us and the reasons they snaffled up Ottakers. I don't mind this. I would however like longer credit terms - 90 days please. After an initial cashflow bottleneck longer terms wouldn't affect the publishers at all. It would be something they could offer us small fry without affecting their P&L as there will always be a continuous supply of sales and re-ordering. They do it for A**z*n.
• I think the Da Vinci Code would have been much better if it was written in bullet points. Sort of avant-garde don'tcha think?

Erm, I think that's enough for now.