Admit it!

Lower Marsh is the COOLEST street in London.

It might look shabby on the surface but there's more crazy sheet going on down here than in so-called cool places such as Shoreditch.

The latest shop to open is dedicated to knitting...

Next up

will be The Private Lives of Pippa Lee by Rebecca Miller.

The daughter of Arthur Miller has to be worth a look I think...

Are we a bookshop?

...erm, yes.

I'm reading Eileen Chang at the minute. Not Lust Caution. Love in a Fallen City.

Set in the 1930's and 1940's I am fast discovering that I know pretty much nothing about China. How have I managed to collect so many stereotyped views about the Chinese?

The stories also put me in mind of writers such as Stephan Zweig and Joseph Roth. Where they wrote about the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Chang chronicles the passing of the Qing dynasty through the fragile republican era and into the early days of the Communist Revolution. Laden with nostalgia and yet buzzing with the excitememnt change brings, Chang's stories are full of surprises and well worth a look.

Nasal Douche

Adam posted a rather yucky poo related ting further down. It reminded me of this book I once started to read. I forget the name of it now but it was a sort of yoga type maintenance manual for the human body. Not only did it have a whole chapter on the best posture for crapping it also referred to nasal douching. This is the practice of forcing warm water through the sinuses. It is supposed to help releave the symptoms of colds. I am totally bunged up after Finn and I messed about in the storms and rain so I am giving it a try this evening.

If I look a little bulbous tomorrow you know what happened...

Currently listening

to Mark Lamarr's Alternative Sixties.

Listen out for the Everly Brothers singing about their Mary Jane.

Rockin'

It's really happening

The builder is getting into shop 2 this week to start work. The timber is at the joiners being turned into bookshelves. I am going there this afternoon to drop off a fridge and microwave for our new staff members.

This is that point at which you suddenly bloody realise what you're doing - we're at the top of the rollercoaster and we're about to go down the other side for a hell of a ride...

But Matthew and I are already hatching other plans...

...Watch this space (In about a years time that is)

Bullard!

We might be sinking ever deeper...but there are moments...

Plaque

No, this is not a post about my recent trip to the dentist. (I need a dentist but I'm not signed up with one.)

This is a post about us winning an award.

Penguin Classics Retailer of the year 2007.

Not bad eh? You can see all the grubby finger marks on it already.

Thanks Penguin, we love you all.

The answer my friend, has just blown away in the wind...

All this rollocks about a big storm coming wound me up no end over the weekend. I have a real dislike of weather predicting people.

"So you think you can predict the future do you clever beard? Come on then - it's Cheltenham this week. Who do you fancy? Not so clever now are you eh? Eh? Micheal Fish eh?"

One of the reasons I dislike them so much is the fact they are generally right. Don't you hate it when people are mostly right?

The other reason is my wife is in thrall to their skills. She will merrily tell me how terrible the weather is going to be and that we might as well shut ourselves indoors with plenty of tinned food until it's safe enough to go out. A woman was knocked out in Hampstead by a flying shop sign don't you know...

Well the weather wasn't so bad yesterday. Finn and I boldly set off for the park in the pouring rain - I with my trusty hat on (If you've got a hat on you'd hardly know it's raining. And nobody notices I'm going bald. And I like to think a hat confers a certain dignity on a man.) and Finn in his Bob the Builder jacket.

The park was empty. Finn splashed in the puddles a lot. He had his boots on but those only go up to mid shin and the splashing was very splashy. He was soaked from head to foot.

We then accidentally invented a new spectator sport. Crossing the basketball courts on our way home we stopped for a kick about. The buggy was caught by a strong gust and set off by itself! What a lark.

"Again! Again!"

This magic worked several times. The buggy would set off, I would yell GOWARN DERE BUGGY! in football watching mode and Finn would leg it yelling BUYGY! BUYGY! It's a Maclaren. You can tell it was designed by the people who made the undercarriage for Spitfire. We even managed to attract the attention of a couple of community wardens who were looking for trouble. They heard our weird yelling and turned up expecting a crowd of glue sniffing urchins but it was just good old dad messing about...

Finn now has a nasty cold. Arse. But fun were had and bad weather was dissed. Shove that in yer pipe and smoke it ya beardy clever sandals bunch.

Holidays - The consequences

Actually, after a week of tagines, salads and cous cous, happy to report that motions are regular and stools are of an agreeable consistency.

I thank you.

How bad is today?

The Frenchman at La Tratteur Cafe still has a full complement of lunchtime baguettes for sale. It's 4 o'clock.

Holidays

I was here yesterday. Reclining on one of these very recliners. With a bottle of Moroccan Rose. It was 27 degrees and a brilliant blue sky. I went swimming off the coast of North Africa on thursday and sat on a beach all afternoon.

Now I'm back in London and the window is leaking and it's bloody freezing and all the customers have wisely decided to stay at home or in the office.

Would you like to see the world's smallest violin?

Smoking

'The council is funding an initiative to get cigarette butts off the street. Would you like a free cigarette bin outside your shop?'

So, do I want to encourage people hanging around outside blowing smoke in customers' faces and generally getting in the way.

'No, that's ok thanks.'

!

Something for the weekend...

Yeah!

Bog Off

Public loos. They aren't what they used to be are they? More to the point there are hardly any left.

The latest brilliant idea from them over the river is for pubs and shops to open their "facilities" to the general public. I'm sorry but you have to be joking. The last person I allowed to use our loo is still in there. (There is no door handle.)

PUT UP TAXES AND BUILD MORE LOOS!

Is there anything the British like more than a good loo? You're telling me people won't pay for loos? Gawd, you could put a thousand quid per annum on council tax if the Daily Mailers thought there would be good loos every hundred yards...

Instead they want to spend fifteen billion on ID cards nobody really wants. Who are these people? Why do we let the idiots rule?

World Book Day Was Yesterday

In case you missed it.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaages ago we attracted a great deal of attention by selling Harry Potter at full price and then giving all the profits to the local school - Johanna Primary.

I went in there yesterday morning for a special assembly. The head teacher, Di, showed the children some of the books she had when she was a child. She explained how expensive books used to be and how special she felt these books that she owned had been to her and her family.

Then she showed the children some of the books I had brought. They all seemed to have read Handa's Surprise and Philip Pullman's Northern Lights but were wowed by Gallop


We raised a little over £500 for the school and they have come up with a great way of spending the money.

When the children do good work they are given stars. When they have a certain number of stars they will come to visit us at the bookshop and can choose a book to take away for free.

I was applauded, blushed and then had to hand out the prizes for a school handwriting competition.

Di and her staff are doing a fantastic job. This is a tough inner-city school that was failing badly. But Di has turned things around and the latest OFSTEd report was very good. A handy reminder of how lucky I am to be able to sell books for a living. Some people really work...

Crockatt & Powell - yeah, we ROCK - but we CARE too!

Singing the Fishing

We're doing well with a book by Christopher Rush called Hellfire and Herring.

It reminded me of a casette my dad used to inflict on us when we drove long distances in the car. It was recorded from radio 2. I think it was first aired in the 60's but this was in the 80's...

Anyway, you can listen to it here.

It says it's an 18 minute extract but it's the whole program as far as I can tell.

Quite apart from another nostalgic tour on my part it's an example of the kind of program that should be on the radio all the time. Some of those accents, the turns of phrase - beautiful stuff...

Ouch!

Yesterday evening I did something rather daft. I was hurrying back from our local shops with a couple of bottles of Becks and a can of Heineken to catch the Champions League matches on telly when I slipped and fell down the steps to our flat.

(We live in a semi-basement flat. You have to go down steps to the front door but the back door leads out onto the garden without steps if you see what I mean.)

Just before I fell down the steps I glanced at the window of the house next door. This house is squatted and there are often weird (and scary) things happening. There is usually a dark blue sheet up over the window but, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the sheet had gone and someone was staring out at me. It's hard to say if this made me lose my footing or if I just slipped but the perception and the fall went together in my mind...I say perception because when I checked later the sheet was in place as usual. There was no face at the window...Or maybe there was when I fell but wasn't later. I wish I knew becasue it would answer an interesting question for me - did I see a face or not? And what is the difference between thinking I saw the face and falling down stairs and seeing a face and falling down stairs.

I managed to smash one of the bottles of beer and cut my finger on it. I also managed to slash open the can of beer with the broken bottle. And break my fall by landing on my elbow. Luckily it was cold and raining a bit so I had plenty of clothes on - otherwise I think there is a good chance I would have broken the elbow. Obviously I was covered in beer! Weirdly I also felt quite shocked. I had to ask Mary to check my bum and legs in case I had cut myself open but just couldn't feel it...

The incident made me feel quite vulnerable. I could have hit my head. Suddenly I understood the careful way that old people manoever down steps. You can't think of the world as a series of "what ifs" or you would become too scared ever to go out. In one of the Raymond Carver stories we just read for bookgroup (called The bath) there is the following - terrifying - sentence.

"At an intersection, without looking, the birthday boy stepped off the curb, and was promptly knocked down by a car."

Just like that. AAAARRRGGHH!!!!!

All in all not my finest hour. The football was worth watching though. Arsenal gave the world a lesson in how the game should be played. To make a team like Milan look so second-rate on their own patch is a pretty great achievement.

BTW before my mum phones or anything I am totally fine. Just a sore elbow. The cut turned out to be minute though it did bleed dramatically!

This month Finn is reading...

The Tiger Who Came to Tea or "Tea" as it's known.

Goodnight Moon aka "Moon"

Who Said Moo or "Moo"

And The Owl And The Pussycat of course...The owl has a ukulele and so does Finn.

Bookgroup

Great bookgroup at C & P last night. A good turnout and loads of interesting responses to Raymond Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.

We don't talk about bookgroup much. In fact the first rule of bookgroup is not to talk about bookgroup.

But it happens.

Every month.

And it's great!

Funk Off

Sorry my friend but THIS is the funkiest record this week.

A Warning and Reminder: Everything you read on this blog is untrue, never happened and cannot be used in evidence against us...

...but luckily the camera strong enough to withstand the naked booty-shaking that took place in our living room this week has not been invented yet. It was all the fault of a long-neglected vinyl LP of African Funk music I re-discovered on top of a wardrobe. Matata's Talkin Talkin and Peter King's Ajo are two of the FUNKIEST tracks EVER RECORDED. Sadly they are also not available on youtube, seeqpod or any of the other dastardly pirate sites I would never ever visit in search of music so I cannot share them with you. But, if you are visiting this site then you are doubtless folk of some (diseased?) imagination - I'm sure you can picture the scene. Yeah, scary! I caught site of myself in a mirror "getting funky" and quit right away.

Backtracking slightly to my post about plastic bags, if you've ever read the delightfully retro Tiger Who Came To Tea by Judith Kerr you will have noticed the excellent string bag Sophie's mum goes shopping with at the end of the book. Proof that there was a time when plastic was so new they only made chairs, spacecraft and hairstyles out of it - couldn't waste such cool stuff on disposable shopping bags. It is also proof of a time when only dad went to work, mum did the shopping and the tiger, as well as drinking all the water in the taps, drank all DADDY's BEER. Chance would be a fine thing. In our poxy era it's dad spends most of his time trying to guzzle a quick bottle of Becks before mum has a chance to demolish it.

(The point approaches, slowly.)

Opening the paper this morning I make the mistake of reading an interview with James Lovelock. What an absolute arse. As well as telling us all we're all doomed - that we have 20 years before climate change really kicks in and that by 2100 80% of people will be dead - he goes on to add there's nothing anyone can do about it.

James James, you are 80. It's ok to think of everything being fu*ked in 20 years time since you will almost certainly be dead. Some of us hope to be alive. Some of us have children who will be celebrating their 21st birthdays around about then.

Why not come and join me in an attempt to follow Beyonce's moves in the video for Crazy in Love? It will be a bit like the time when my dad invented a new dance called the Penguin at our wedding. And the time when he inflicted said dance on a couple of young ladies at a disco in rural France. It was pretty bad. Most people said things along the lines of Oh My Gawd.

That's the reaction youth should have when experience gets out of control. I can see us now James. I'm shaking my booty and you've just slipped a disc trying to get your leg up "there". Young (1 and nine months) Finn is looking on shaking his head - dad dad dad, don't do that to yourself.

Meanwhile he will be working out a way to save us using hi-tech wizardry only an almost two year old could come close to conceiving of...

These Guys Are Well Into Their Fifties But They Still ROCK

Song title seemed to fit recent larks on Lower Marsh.



Sonic Youth - Teenage Riot

Would you like to accelerate towards the tipping point beyond which there is no avoidance of humanity being wiped from the face of the planet?

Er, I mean - "Would you like a bag?"

Yikes

We've just handed the builder a 10 grand deposit and he's ordering the wood for the new shop.

Bloody hell.

8 weeks to go and counting...

It's not April Fools Day is it?

A leather bound e-book?

Really?

They have to be kidding.

On the Richter scale of inappropriate bookshop behaviour

About a 7.4

For some reason or other it seemed like a good idea to listen Missy Elliott's This is Not a Test in the shop and while a great record there are one or two tracks on there of a sexual nature one of which is Dats What Im Talkin About featuring R Kelly. Not ideal when it's just me in here and a young woman browsing the new titles...

Anyway, ramping up the scale of impropriety here's the video of Dave Chappelle's take on R. Kelly's er... misdemeanours.

Ahh, the ambience...

A friend was telling me her impression of the shop:

'It's like walking into a more intellectual version of a garage.'

Would that be a kwik-fit or an underneath the arches I wonder?

And does that mean we have more intellectual arse cleavage?

Do you think we can get away with pics of Sam, 23 from Northampton blu-tacked to the wall?

Or maybe we just desperately need to hire some women!!

Red Alert!

Dr Rick likes to try and catch me out:

"Hah, a book for a four month old baby!"

"The Rainbow fish, bath version."

Then I had to tell the Rainbow Fish story.

I was working as a bookseller in a bookshop in Marybone when I last suggested The Rainbow Fish to someone. Lo! Some days later the lady returns the book.

"Whaddaya doing trying to brainwash my children with Communist propoganda!"

After responding with a stunned silence she swapped the book for something else. She left.

"It's about sharing..." I mumbled to the space she had vacated.

Found Humour - Overheard On Lower Marsh This Morning...

A young woman is looking at the fruit on an old man's stall. She picks up a plum. She puts it down again.

"Don't squeeze the fruit love, I don't know where your hands have been. They might have been up your arse..."

Young woaman walks off, probably never to return to a market stall ever again.

It's not all down to Tesco is it...

Damn you Microsoft

Mistakenly updated internet explorer and not only have microsoft shamelessly copied Firefox it's totally ballsed up my settings so that the only bastard reason I use the thing - to watch the free football from Thailand - now doesn't work. Grr.

Exclusive! West the new East!

Contrary to Lonely Planet's latest London edition exclaiming the East End as the place to be, trend-setters Crockatt & Powell say No! While the bright lights shine on Shoreditch, Mayfair quietly goes about its business of being sexier, better dressed, more stylish, more intriguing and just plain louche. Sure it's probably international arms deals going on behind those elegant, nameless facades but we can overlook that for now as driving round the Mayfair streets in an open top Roller early on a sunday morning after an all-nighter of whichever persuasion takes your fancy remains one of my top teenage (admittedly slightly Austin Powersish) fantasies.

Oy Verity

I don't quite have Matthew's antipathy towards Fiona but we have to admit that it will forever and always just have to be Verity. This week has been especially brilliant.

Thanks Rory

We love it when a customer alerts us to a book that you know as soon as it goes on the table will just sell, sell and sell some more because it's so ace and lovely and value for money and and and...

Dirty Pretty Things

Happened to find myself at Marylebone station this morning at 8am and while there was the option of joining the throng down the hole in the ground to the Bakerloo line I saw that it was shaping up to be a fine morning and thought, bugger it, I'll walk to Waterloo.

Passed Madame Tussauds and toyed with the idea of returning on my day off to spend 15 quid to sit in the Big Brother chair but that thought soon departed as I turned into Marylebone High Street. Down the road (not taking notes, no sir, at any other bookshops, at all) the street was yet to open for business and a pleasant ambulatory feel started to take root.

Through James Street as the waiters were putting the tables out for the day and the place where I always forget at which restaurant I had a particularly good spaghetti and clams, I had a sudden urge to look at shiny baubles on Bond Street. And what baubles they are! While normally a person morally, politically, philosophically and economically outraged by anyone spending fifteen hundred pounds on a handbag I had to admit that the wares on display in the Bulgari window did look really, really, really nice. Such materials and craft, I almost found myself submitting to their siren call...

But no! But then! In a maritime antique shop on Jermyn Street there was a nineteenth century Elm and Oak model of a spiral staircase. A thing of supreme beauty and not priced - surprise surprise (If you gotta ask the price, you're in the wrong place) but, I wanted it. I just bloody wanted it.

Ignoring my sudden urge to an acquisative nature I ventured down St James's Street, past St James's Palace and into St James's park where the daffs were out in full bloom. Then a walk along the lake (pond?) looking at Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and the Eye over the treetops and trying not to step on the birds. Through the arch at Horseguards Parade, trying not to get my eye taken out by the sabre-rattling sentry, across Whitehall and down to the river, trying not to get run over.

Across Westminster bridge and back to the shop my stroll took a leisurely one whole hour and anytime you hear London mentioned as just a dirty, big, grimy, rat-hole excuse for a city is just bloody wrong wrong wrong. It's beautiful. Really it is, very beautiful.

And if I had the money I would live in Mayfair in an absolute instant. And if you're tempted by the tube leave the house earlier and just walk. There are too many sometimes dirty but mostly pretty things to look at besides other peoples armpits.

Obama - I Love You

The guy just has so much going for him...




Oprah





Scarlet

...and now Crockatt & Powell

All that crap about a lack of experience etc. If George can run the USA then I think just about anybody could. And I am just floored by his way with words. (Even though Bob the Builder got there first with the Yes We Can thing)

His middle name is even Hussein...

Spot the Difference

Us

Them

Here's a clue: While they are still endeavouring to respond to your enquiry we'll have already got your book and have it in the shop to pick up or posted first class where it will be at your house the next day while their endeavoured response may or may not have reached its way back to you.

Service, huh?

We win. Again!

West Ham At The Weekend

...we might be a bit crap at football

...chairman Mo may have totally lost the plot

...but there is and will ever only be One Jimmy Bullard!



I am just out of shot in the pic at the top BTW - ever the man of mystery...

The Ministry of Pain

I accidentally started a book on Saturday during a quiet moment in the shop. The Ministry of Pain by Dubravka Ugrešić was on the table and I picked it up and started reading.

I was speaking to a good customer about it today and he pointed out that the C & P bookgroup read this book a year ago. Sadly that was one of the books I didn't read - Marie took charge of that particular meeting. A real shame as now I want to discuss it with people!

The book looks at the various experiences of a group of exiles from the Former Yugoslavia.

(As an aside I have to say that I fear for the future of the Balkans. In all the pictures of the recent celebrations of Kosovan independence the official, EU designed, flags were nowhere to be seen. All I saw were red flags with black eagles - the Albanian flag - and a few token stars and stripes or Union Jacks. 44% of the population unemployed. Only a few Serbs remaining - don't forget the rest were revenge-cleansed by the KLA - and yet all the Serbs that have stayed are convinced Kosovo is Serbian. A recipe for disaster or what?) BTW can I point you in the direction of Mark Mazower's Short History of the Balkans - it's on the table next door...

Although I have to agree that the characters are not particularly well drawn, the translation is less than perfect and the ending sounds dodgy (all points raised at the bookgroup meeting according to excellent customer mentioned earlier) I am still loving it.

Why? Because fiction just seems so much more real than all the political/historical crap you see in the papers and on TV. Fiction is a way to live, for an illusory few moments at least, in the minds of other people.

Ugresic's descriptions of "our people" were instantly recognisable.

"It was just a plastic holdall. What made it special was that it had red, white and blue stripes. It was the cheapest piece of hand-luggage on earth, a proletarian swipe at Vuitton."

"In the Berlin neighbourhood where Goran and I had lived I would stop in front of the large window of the refugee "club". Through the glass I could see "our people" mutely playing cards, staring at the television set and taking occasional swigs straight from the bottle. The hand-drawn map on the wall was festooned with postcards. It had a geography all its own. The places they came from - Brcko or Bijeljina - stood at the centre of the world: these were the only homelands the men had left. Surrounded by smoke rings, they looked as "former" as their one-time nationality; they looked like corpses that had risen from the grave for a bottle of beer and a round of cards but ended up in the wrong place."

There are plenty of "our people" in South London - and their origins are as many and varied as there are countries and experiences.

As a window into the world of the displaced The Ministry of Pain is a great book, whilst still being a flawed book.

No shit, Sherlock

I think I'd be quite good in a Think Tank. Stating the blindingly obvious is a handy and financially rewarding skill to have in ones locker, ain't it.

You'd think I'd had enough of loud noises by now

But thanks to my new toy at seeqpod it's to much to resist putting together a playlist of loud stuff.


SeeqPod - Playable Search

Test your traveller IQ

This is a cool way to kill 10 minutes.

First go I got an IQ of 123, level 11 and 483,996 points. Beat that!

So near, yet so far...

'We're doing a shoot for the ***** **** weekend mag. The editor ordered 150 books from amazon and one has turned up. We gotta shoot today. ***** is looking for books and she'll be down in a minute'

Hee Hee. Ker-Ching.

Little Miss Christmas storms in barely out of school looking around frantically.

'I've got a list' she tells the photographer.

'If you let me have a look at the list I can tell you where to get them', say I.

And she ignores me as obviously I only run a bookshop and she's a VERY IMPORTANT PERSON in the meedja and all of her 23 years means she know instantly A LOT MORE than I possibly could about where to get her sodding books.

They waft out in the vain search for these books that are actually going to end up as freebies that the editor was going to swipe for himself at the end of the shoot. Arseholes. Nice photographer though.

Just as well I wouldn't pick up a ***** **** with a 10 ft pair of irradiated tweezers.

OK! You can stop it now! Really! You can stop! Right! Now! Shut the Fu*K UP!

Noise

They're digging up the road outside. I'm trying Carole King at full blast but not much competition for a man sawing through tarmac. May be insane by the end of the day.

In the mean time here's Carole for you good people to listen too without interference...

It's been a long week

I noticed something for the first time this morning, something pretty banal really, but also something that shifted my mood from one of gloomy introspection to one of expansive joy.

The sun was shining at a wintry angle through Burgess park, one of the largest parks in London but also one of the least loved.

The yellow light was warming the grass and bringing out an extra level of greenness somehow, but in the long shadows cast by trees there was a thick white frost.

The shadows were roughly tree-shaped because they were the shadows of trees. So the frosty places were also tree-shaped.

As I noticed this I walked closer to the trees, Blackthorns I think. They were full of white blossom, the otherwise naked branches black against a blue sky.

As I came closer still my pace slowed and dark shapes stirred into crows that staggered away through the icy air towards the park interior. They left behind a dusting of snowy petals that fell onto the path around me.

I was reminded of a day in Richmond Park several years ago. Mary and I stood and watched a pond freeze before our eyes. A fierce winter breeze shivered the surface. Then we began to see geometric shapes appear. You could actually see the moments when the curved shapes of ripples froze into lines of ice. I was younger then and had a lot more time on my hands. I spent the next few months trying to fix that experience into lines of verse. I failed repeatedly until a moment of joy became a painful reminder of my limits as a writer.

Walking in today I still feel the need to try and fix the experience in place with words. But my failure to do so is less frustrating than it used to be. I used to see words as cages for experience. Now I see them more as cats eyes on a dark road...or the stars above a small boat, far out at sea...

"And up from the ground came a-bubblin' crude

Oil that is, black gold, Texas T"

On my walk in this morning my thoughts turned once again to There Will Be Blood, the magnificent film on general release at the mo'. Mostly excellent feedback but I've heard a few voices moaning that it is overrated or indeed one of our customers today who thought it just boring. An incomprehensible response I must say.

Anyway, I was thinking again about the film and it occured to me just how funny it is. Yes, bleak and disturbing and violent and insane but also very, very funny in a drily absurdist sense that reflects the total absurdity of Daniel Plainview's exercise. Some of Daniel Day Lewis's faces and gurns and poses are blackly amusing and not, I think, unintended on the part of the director and actor.

This struck me when thinking about the scene where Plainview and his boy HW are out 'hunting quail' on the Sunday ranch when actually looking for oil. The part where they are firing their guns at the ground and then find some oil on the surface really reminded me of the opening credits of the Beverly Hillbillies where Jed Clampett also finds oil which leads him to a mansion in California much as Plainview's discovery leads him to a similar mansion only in a much darker place. I don't think echoes like these are an accident. Knowing Paul Thomas Anderson's previous work I think he would only be all to aware of the imagery and would consciously use the theme as a reflection on the American dream and where it would lead.

The marvelous thing about this film is that in an age where 'What's it all about then?' is usually reduced to the length of a blog post or newspaper review we have a film that absolutely refuses to be contained in such a way. It twists and turns and reveals its complex layers on each richly rewarded re-viewing. Can't praise it highly enough although my film companion does think I'm becoming a little obsessive. (I could bore you with my thoughts on the framing devices in the cinematography but maybe that's another post on another blog).

Go and see it. Atleast three times.

Something for the weekend Pt 2

Oi Oi are you 'avin it this weekend?

Nah mate, I will mostly be changing nappies and playing with toy cars...

Hats

Manny, the vegetable stall geezer outside our shop, was wearing a beret yesterday. Manny is a great cockney patriot. When the French market comes to visit Lower Marsh he gets a huge George cross flag out and drapes it over his stall. So I was a little surprised to see him in French national dress.

"French market today is it Manny?"

"Eh? Where!" he's looking about, ready for war.

"Your hat Manny..."

"Oh that" he laughs "I was just fuc*in' cold!"

Then this morning I was down at Scooterworks with the other early morning coffee junkies huddled around the famous Scooterworks machine. Graham from the second-hand bookshop over the road was there. He didn't recognise me until I said hello.

"Oh hello - I din't see you there in that hat!" big piss-take grin on his face.

I had to explain that I bought the hat on holiday in France under pressure fom my wife who was worried about the increasingly hard to ignore bald spot on my head catching fire or something. I still wear it now because it reminds me of cycling to fetch baguettes and pastries from the closest village on sunny/misty mornings when only the cows were awake.

Hats eh? Do you have a favourite? Does it provoke comment?

Sade rocks Africa

Ages ago we drew your attention to Sade Adeniran's book Imagine This. She contacted us after Adam issued a plea to self-published authors to leap off high buildings rather than bother us with their delusional crud (not his words but that was the gist!)

She came in and showed her self-published book to Adam. He loved it and ordered copies. I had a look and loved it too. We blogged about it and started selling...

This morninmg she e-mailed to say Imagine This has just been shortlisted for the African section of the Commonwealth Writers prize!

Brilliant news Sade.

Here we go!

Hold tight...

I have a pile of un-read books this high...

Yada yada yada I've heard it all before love. That does not mean you should not buy this massive John Cowper Powys book I am waving at you and it certainly means there is no escape from Denis Johnson...

Why?

Well this weekend I was foxed for a book to read. I was planning to revisit Raymond Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk About Love but when I couldn't find it on my bookshelves. Must have lent it to someone at some point - the fate of many a good book.

So what do I do? I find something I have on the shelf but have never read and take it into the sunny garden. (In Feb? What the *u*k?) The book in question was Denis Johnson's The Name of the World. It is quite brilliant and possibly one of the most powerful and disturbing novels I have read despite being a mere 130 pages long. Now I need to talk about it with someone. But luckily Dr Rick should be in some time this week and I'm sure our usual free consultation will take place.

What is it about words eh? And names? So hard and small and definite and so totally unable to cope with the morass of human consciousness...

What do we talk about when we talk about love? What is the name of the world? What world? Does it matter or should we just ride this crazy century into the sky?

Jennie Walker is the Next Big Thing...

...you heard it here first!

There's something going on in the real world where real people write real books. What's that you may ask? Well, people are writing really good books! Jennie Walker is one of these people. She ain't called Peaches or Cream and her dad isn't and never will be on the cover of magazines. But damn it if she hasn't written one fine little book...

24 for 3 will be on a bestseller list near you soon. In the meantime you can buy the CB edition from us at C & P and a few other places. You can also buy it online from CB themselves.

What's it about? The disintegration of a relationship and possibly a family as seen through the murky prism of cricket...

The devil makes work for idle hands

Been fiddlin' about on the website again. Changed the look and added a nifty enquiry form. Go to the homepage, select Enquiries from the drop down box, fill in all the relevant info, add some comments, click Submit and it will be the quickest and easiest way to ask us any questions.

A few pics of the shop on there too.

We'll be adding pages to the site over the months, some serious, some not so. Watch this space.

Ascent

If, having accepted the reality that YOU WILL NEVER DANCE AGAIN ANYWHERE NEAR A YOUNG PERSON WITHOUT LOOKING REALLY DAFT and you want a book for the weekend then you could do a lot worse than grab yourself a copy of Jed "Bodies" Mercurio's new paperback Ascent.

A narrative as addrenaline pumped and explosive as the rocket propelled life it describes...

Something For The Weekend...

It's Friday and the part of me that remains resolutely under 30 is getting ready for the weekend...

...meanwhile the aged moi is preparing for an afternoon of childcare followed by a weekend of hanging out in playgrounds.

Once you start it's hard to stop

A mini Sly and the Family Stone appreciation blog (with a little bit of Stevie Wonder at the end) thanks to many hours on youtube...









and Stevie Wonder



There's a theme here, eh?

More grooves

You know how it is, you're surfing youtube and then you come up for air 4 hours later. So much brilliant stuff so many grooves. Following on from the Fela Kuti I remembered this mentalist wig-out from the woodstock film. Just remember though, if the drums stop, there'll be a bass solo...

I bloomin love open source software

It makes you come over all fuzzy and warm to think there's all these people out there writing brilliant software and giving it away for nothing! While we've stumped up the spondoolies for Dreamweaver CS3 purely 'cause it's cool and you can do whizzy stuff on it there's nothing wrong with the great WYSIWYG web design site NVU. Now I've just discovered Paint.net a perfectly serviceable alternative to the 700 quid photoshop. And free! La La Lah.

Fela Kuti is on the radio at the mo'

The Byrne playlist this month really does lend itself.

Walter Benjamin's Archive

What a joy to open a box and pull out marvelous and fantastic writers everyday. If you held a gun to my head I'd say my favourite authors were Chekhov and Walter Benjamin and this new edition of fragments and notes beautifully produced by Verso is just a joy to hold. Opening at random:

"To find words for what one has before one's eyes - how difficult that can be. But once they come they batter like tiny hammers against reality, until they have pressed a picture from it as from a copper plate."

Brilliant. And it's only £16.99. What a bargain.

Uniformity

Some people like wearing uniforms. Some people put up with wearing uniforms. Some people loathe wearing uniforms. Which category do you think this lot will fit into?

Matthew and I are thinking this for the new shop...

How London is this? None more London

Finally got around to starting the proof copy of the new Hanif Kureishi novel which Matthew will be pleased about because I nabbed it first and he's been bugging me for ages to give it to him. It's really, really good (is there a better novelist out there at writing about sex? Answers on a postcard please) and I should power through it pretty quickly which is odd for me. But, the thing is it's so London specific, so of a time and a place and a type of people that it's almost provincial and I wonder when reading it how anyone who doesn't know the Goldhawk Road and Shepherds Bush market would engage. But then I quickly realise it's the same as me when I read books so centred in LA or New York or Mumbai. Either the writing and the characters are engaging and interesting or they're not and it doesn't matter what the name of the street is. I'll have to wait until the end of the book though to decide if Kureishi is taking too much for granted.

He's done it again!

Regular readers will be aware of our love for all things David Byrne and this months radio play list is no exception. Nearly five! hours of fantastic African rhythms. Go there! NOW!

The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson

Crockatt & Powell hover like intellectual eagles (ahem) above the book trade. Our piercing gaze spots the best books and plucks them from the dross like little mice from a field of long grass. We then present these juicy literary titbits, catlike, at your be-slippered feet...

But sometimes the little tasty buggers slip down their holes in time and evade our gaze.

That was the case with this EXCELLENT and MOST EXCITING book.

The Ghost Map will grab you from the first line:

"It is August 1854, and London is a city of scavengers."

In fact I was gripped from page two of the preface where a quote from Walter Benjamin that is too long to insert here (you'll justy have to buy the book won't you!).

Jacket design of the year

I know it's only february but someone's going to have to pull something out of the hat to beat this I reckon. Good work Phil Baines and Penguin. Looks a cracking read as well, an inquiry into what it is to a good job. 25 quid well spent.

And on the issue of value we were selling the Garvey book mentioned below at the book launch for 20 pounds. Had a few people turn up their noses at the steepness of the price. But when I went to the bar the woman in front didn't even blink when charged 12 quid for two glasses of wine. 12 WHOLE ENGLISH POUNDS! Priorities, huh. Mind you, I forked over 4 for a bottle of becks. Fools and their money.

No One Remembers Ol' Marcus Garvey

We were out last night in West London celebrating the launch of Negro With A Hat by Colin Grant.

It's an excellent book and we had a rather excellent time.

Never heard of Garvey? Read the book...

Don't forget him!

The Saga Magazine Wise List 2008

The over 50's magazine has put us in their 'Wise List' Literature section, or rather Joel Rickett has nominated us, deputy ed of The Bookseller trade mag and Guardian columnist. Cheers Joel. Here's a small quote to help inflate our already expanding egos:

'Adam Powell (36) and Matthew Crockatt (33)... are redefining the independent bookselling scene. Their elegant Crockatt & Powell shop in London's Waterloo combines an old-school feel with a discerning, eclectic selection of books. And it's working.'

And if that wasn't good enough, the other people on the Saga Wise List for Literature 2008 are... Doris Lessing, JK Rowling, Luke Johnson (ex channel 4 who's just bought Borders), Mark Ellingham (founder of Rough Guides and erm, that's it. Gulp. That's some company to keep. Cool.

Although tomorrow I'll actually be 37. One year closer to taking out a Saga subscription. Which I definitely will.

I concur

Seth Godin with more interesting thoughts:


"Dumbing Down

"Our readers won't understand this."

"Our customers are too busy and won't get this."

"The people who come to our restaurant want red meat."

"No one is going to want something this good..."

Think about the stuff you hear on the radio or read about in mass market publications. When they attempt to cover something you really know about, they seem pretty stupid, don't they? Oversimplifying to the point of getting it completely wrong. They're busy pandering to the masses, dumbing things down for the lowest common denominator.

You're under pressure to do that with your restaurant and your spiritual advice and your stump speech and your non-profit pitch. There are gatekeepers pushing you to dumb it down for the average.

The thing is, when you dumb stuff down, you know what you get?

Dumb customers.

And (I'm generalizing here) dumb customers don't spend as much, don't talk as much, don't blog as much, don't vote as much and don't evangelize as much. In other words, they're the worst ones to end up with.

I'll take the smart customers/readers/prospects every time, please."

Or is that elitist snobbery? Hmm? No, I don't think so.

Get yours in on time?

Remember kids, don't FEAR the 'MAN!!

Juliet wanted more - 4, 5, 6

No's 1,2 and 3 in an occasional series

Mmmm...books...

Just started Child of All Nations by Irmgard Keun.

First off Dr Rick is talking to us about it. It's translated by Michael Hofmann so (of course) Dr Rick wants a copy. Then I read about the author in the Guardian. And now the book...

...excellent so far.

Child narrator, but don't let that put you off. Peniless writer father obsessed with books. Europe, gently collapsing into WW2.

"My father came back very late, because he met a policeman on the way. He made friends with the policeman...and then the two of them went off together to have a drink. As my father couldn't pay, he had to call the poet Fiedler, who's staying in Brussels for the time being, and who doesn't have any money either. And then Herr Fiedler came along, plus a bookseller who worships my father, and he agreed to lend him seventy francs. My mother and I had fallen asleep sadly in the window when my father made his happy return."

...you can't fix your bed with it though can you?

Settle back with a smug grin traditional book-lovers and prepare to shrivel geekoids as I bang the final nail into the (admittedly rather spiffily designed) coffin of the e-reader/kindle/futurerubbishnamefortheproductformerlyknownasthebook.

There was a bit of a disaster last night. We broke our bed. (That's enough sniggering there at the back! Finn likes to bounce - let's just say dad was trying to bounce too and leave it at that ok. You know I have this amazing knack of breaking stuff? I broke the feet off our shop heater this week. Now I bust the bed. It's what I do. OK?)

So the bed broke. Then I broke it again. More. On this occasion the breakage had nothing at all to do with the fact last night was Burn's night. Or that a certain experimental jazz band called Dog Soup were playing in the crypt of the Church at the end of our road.

But I've been digressing from the start...

The bed was broken. We had to sleep. We fixed it. How?

USING BOOKS! REAL BOOKS! MADE OF PAPER! AND WE DIDN'T WAKE UP TILL 8am! MORE SLEEP THAN I'VE HAD FOR BLOODY AGES!

In fact I'm so chuffed with our new book-bed I may put my foot down and say we have to keep it.

Before you ask I will not be posting photos for fear of causing offence to those whose proof copies may have been used to prop us up all night. A better fate still than the books that end up being sent to HMP Altcourse where - legend has it - the crims drill holes in unwanted books...

PS At C & P we don't do returns. Why? 'Cos we're stupid and lazy. Er, I mean because we never make mistakes - all the books we buy are great!

PPS If people stop reading real books I can always go into book furniture design eh?

I have an uncle called David Thomson

David Thomson in the Guardian today gave a rather glowing and knowing big-up to There Will Be Blood the film I've been going round in raptures about lately to anyone who'll listen:

'There Will Be Blood, from its first scene to the last, conveys a steady stream of breathtaking cinematic invention without ever letting us determine where the movie is going'

About Paul Thomas Anderson, the director:

'Anderson is the most ambitious and accomplished director working in the English language now and he is one of the few great living directors.'

So, David Thomson, author of the fantastic Biographical Dictionary of Film and bearing the same name as my uncle David in Limavady is on message. Hooray, I love it when people agree with me.

That was Then, This is Now

'Do you charge for ordering books on ABE? I'm looking for some out of print titles'

'Yes, five pounds usually'

'Hinton's the author, S'

'E Hinton. Erm, we have them in stock actually. American imports. Here I'll show you'

'Marvelous. Rumblefish too. I've been looking everywhere for these and everybody tells me they are out of print'

'No, just this country'

'What a result! It's going to be a great weekend'

'Happy to oblige'

!

Oscars! (Writers Guild permitting)

The nominations for the oscars were announced yesterday. Unusually for me I've actually seen 4 out of the 5 best films so here goes my best 5 in reverse order:

• Atonement - The book is a writerly conceit and the film is very close to the book. Just as manipulative as the most trite Hollywood schmaltz only dressed up in cut-glass vowels and fancy frocks. However, Keira Knightly does deserve some kind of award for really, really wearing that green dress.
• Michael Clayton - The one I haven't seen. Looks worthy but dull.
• No Country For Old Men - Gut wrenchingly riveting and gripping on the first viewing. Desert landscapes, silence, stolen money, cattle guns, Tommy Lee Jones, what could go wrong? Well, on a second viewing the whole thing falls apart. I just didn't buy it, especially the Chigurh character, a figure of death and destruction but one without context. Matthew and I have argued long about this but suffice to say, I'm right.
• Juno - Brilliant! Funny, intelligent, non-judgemental, unpredictable and with great performances all round. Seen this three times now and it just gets better and better.
• There Will Be Blood - I may embarrass myself here... Quite simply one of the best films I have ever seen. Paul Thomas Anderson, the director, made Boogie Nights, Magnolia and the much underrated Punch Drunk Love. He hasn't made a picture for 5 years and I think in that time he's been to the crossroads and made a deal... An allegorical and symbolic history of the twentieth century no less this extraordinary film taken in part from an Upton Sinclair novel starts with men literally pulling oil out of the ground with buckets and ends with an act of unparalleled madness and brutality. The film is apocalyptic and visionary and I have no problems comparing it to Bosch or Grunewald in its intensity and beauty. The performances are all excellent but Daniel Day-Lewis is just an elemental force of nature. I've seen this three times also and different parts of Day-Lewis's character reveal themselves on each viewing he simply is Daniel Plainview. It's a genuine delight to come across a work of art in your lifetime that you just know will be considered as one of the greats across time. This film should win everything it's up for, which means, of course, it won't.

Please let there be an Oscars!

Thetans

A book for a customer has just arrived from the states. Looks a doozy and I bet we could sell a few if I put it in the window. Unfortunately it has 'NOT FOR SALE IN THE UK AND IRELAND' emblazened across the back. Should I risk it? Knowing the subjects litigious nature I just can't. Any passing Hubbard devotee is going to get the lawyers on us pronto. Bugger.

The Booksheller

We don't subscribe to the industry rag but one of our friendly neighborhood reps occasionally brings us a bunch of back issues to see what we're missing.

This is from the 9 November issue:

'St Pancras Foyles arrives late

...Once the £500,000 refit is completed, the 3,500 square foot store will stock some 6,500 titles.'

Hmm. 6,500 titles in a 3,500 square foot shop. That's not much. Based on C&P's capacity which as any visitor would know isn't exactly overburdened with stock that would probably mean they would have room to stock 4 copies of every title. Which would indicate, what with todays 24 hour turnaround on ordering, that they are expecting to sell 3 copies of every book, every day. That's impressive. In fact, let's do some sums.

6500 times 4... carry the 1... times by... erm... divided by.........

Bloody hell! That's a stock turn of just over 273! Well done Foyles! Most of us are happy with 5 and a bit!

Or maybe the Bookseller magazine just got the wrong end of the stick.

Now, where's that subscription form again...

(Disclaimer: This is not a moan at Foyles! They just happen to have been mis-somethinged. Unless they really are only having 6500 titles in 3500 square feet in which case it's going to be dead roomy. Probably loads of sofas to stretch out on. Nice.)

This is fun...

Ok, we won't be able to stop blogging because however dumb it is on SOOOOO many levels it is fun.

It's probably totally unprofessional etc (YAAAWN) but we are what we are and we do what we do.

But please go easy on us for a while. We have a lot of work to do and I was up at 4am this morning.

And my kid just got his face scratched at nursery.

So I'm emotional. And boring myself now.

So I'll go home and lie down.

Maybe I'll finish the book I'm reading? BUtterfield 8

Class(room) War

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

The new shop will be geographically further Sarf than this one.

Crockatt & Powell is and always will be about books books books and people people people.

When we opened on Lower Marsh we had to put up with folk saying we should be selling second-hand or discounted books because they judged the area according to cliched/stereotypical ideas of who it was who lived/worked/shopped in Waterloo.

Now we are to open in Chelsea and the predictable accusations are flying about.

We can go two ways - stop blogging for fear of upsetting people or carry on as normal. If we carry on then you'll just have to put up with it.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - nobody forces you to read this. Don't like it don't look...

O.B.N

A commenter below has given us an Order of the Brown Nose for our toadying to the new shop clientele and for threatening to change the blog. Thank you sir, a timely boot up the arse to remind us of our origins.

Unfortunately, I believe it will be mostly impossible to change no matter how much we want to grovel for the crumbs from the chelsea table.

Normal service shall be resumed.

The Visitors

Some Chelsea folk having seen the bit in the standard have just been in to survey what's going to be turning up on their doorstep in a couple of months. Very exciting and frankly sometimes terrifying this bookshop stuff.

Swan-Like

No I'm not going all mockney and chatting about ballet...

Media oars Crockatt & Powell were mentioned in the Evening Standard last night. (A good customer phoned up demanding to know who our mates in the media are - but we don't have any. I don't know why they're always writing about us either!) We're opening a new shop don't you know. They didn't speak to us, just looked at the blog where Adam was wondering if he should be worrying about the new shop or surfing on youtube some more.

As you might have realised this blog causes us occasional moments of terror. People actually read this crap. What if they were to take it all seriously? (No we are opening a new shop - honest. It's so confusing!)

So for all those of you West London types wondering who these blokes from down the 'loo are - don't worry - we're not as mad as we seem.

Think of a swan. Beautiful - graceful - mostly owned by the Queen. But underwater there are bigflappyorange feet going for it...

C & P 2 is going to be brilliant.

And beautiful.

And in the papers...

(Unless they decide our heads are too big and it's time to send us crashing down.)

Gah! All I ever wanted was a quiet life and a few good books to read. BARMAN!

This doesn't make any sense

How come I really like this song when performed by these people:



Yet run from the room screaming when 'sung' by this man:



But come to think of it, how come I like that song at all? Middle-age looms large... Another birthday is approaching... My years at Napalm Death gigs are fast receding...

But continuing in a country vein, check these two out.



Doesn't that just bring a smile to your face.

A brilliant dissection

AA Gill gets a third mention in three posts. Nothing at all to do with the fact he was a regular at Pan and hopefully won't find mk 2 to offensive to his palette to continue shopping with us. Sucking up? You betcha.

Anyway this is his brilliant destruction of the new Alain Ducasse restaurant at the Dorchester. I particularly like the last few paragraphs:

"Altogether, lunch took an unconscionable two hours, but that’s by the by. The point of this gaffe is the bill. For four of us – one person only had two courses – with a bottle of £40 wine chosen by the snail-mouthed sommelier, it came to 435 of your English pounds, including £48 for service. That’s sickening. The fixed price for three courses is £75, with a £10 supplement for a snivel of black truffle. I have always said that value depends on what you start off with, but I’ve changed my mind. It doesn’t matter how rich you are, this place would deafen you with the tearing sound of being ripped off.

And I’ve got a new definition of value and worth and hospitality: if the main course costs more than the waiter who serves it makes in a shift, then I don’t want to eat it, or support the restaurant that tries to get away with it. That sort of radical divergence of society – the sort of envy and resentment that it encourages – is immoral, and bad for a city and for everyone who lives in it. And if that doesn’t spoil your appetite, then nothing short of the chef pissing in your soup will.

As I looked round, I realised that nobody in this room was actually paying for their food: it was all on expenses. And, ultimately, all expense accounts are paid for by people who use goods and services. I hope it’s scant joy for you to know that, although you will never eat, nor be able to afford to eat, at Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester, you are still able to pay for those who do."

I do love the sound of furious and righteous anger. And talking of radical divergence, on the short cycle ride between Sloane Square and shop 2 I spotted 3 Aston Martins, 2 Bentleys, A big flash Maserati, a Mercedes Mclaren and Range Rovers, big Beemers and Mercs too numerous to mention. A far cry from the Marsh. This is our new world now, I'd better start getting used to it.

The Curious Incident of the Hedgepig in Morrisons : No 2 In An Occasional Series Illustrating The Extreme Dangers Faced By The Toys Of Small Children

I'm sure you've all heard of the humble hedgehog? Beloved delicacy of the tinker and worm-eater extraordinaire? And the sheep-pig? Beloved creation of Dick King-Smith? Well Finn has (had) a Hedgepig...

Hedgepig was small and his spines were soft. To make matters worse there was a hole in his belly for fingers. From time to time he would be relaxing in the buggy when some idiot would come along, stuff a finger in his belly and wiggle him around in front of a screaming chieftain known as Finn the Merciless (by his toys). It was clear from an early stage that Hedgepig's time on earth was going to be nasty, brutal and short.

And so it proved.

On a trip to Morrisons in Peckham (take a left at the sixth ring of Hell and you are nearly there) the Hedgepig was receiving some serious Finn Love in the form of snot-wiping and general chewing etc. While mum was selecting fine premium ale for dad to drink his pigness was presumably hurled onto the floor. We must presume since there were no witnesses to the incident. It could indeed have been a desperate, suicidal even, attempt at escape.

Still the result was not in doubt. Finn spent the rest of the time in Morrisons yelling "PIIIG PIIIIG PIIIIG" and mum had to smile and shrug at various "large" people in an attempt to convince them he wasn't shouting in their direction. The Hedgepig was reported missing at customer services and a search party slouched around the ails for all of thirty seconds before abandoning hope.

Hedgepig has gone.

(Wipes away a tear)

If you're out there Hedgepig - snuffle on!

How weird is that?

Just reading AA Gill on sitcoms from yesterdays Times and he's writing about his greatest sitcom moments one of which is Neal being humiliated on the Young Ones. I look up from the computer and who should be standing in the middle of the shop? Nigel Planer! Neal from the Young Ones! A semi-regular customer. Blimey, how weird IS that?

shop two

Spent yesterday afternoon in the new shop with Matthew and our soon-to-be employee who shall remain anonymous as long as they want to not appear on this blog. Sorted out what we're selling and where and it was all jolly exciting. Soon-to-be employee no. 2 forgot to turn up. Not a good start. They shall be severely reprimanded and given a damned good spanking.

I also managed to double-lock the front door which meant the builders working on the flats above the shop couldn't get in. Oops.

Robert Hughes on Solitude

From his memoir Things I didn't Know.

'O beata solitudo - O sola beatudo! Enforced solitude, as in solitary confinement, is a terrible and disorienting punishment, but freely chosen solitude is an immense blessing. To be out of the rattle and clang of quotidian life, to be away from the garbage of other people's amusements and the overflow of their unwanted subjectivities, is the essential escape. Solitude is, beyond question, one of the world's great gifts and an indespensable aid to creativity, no matter what level that creation may be hatched at. Our culture puts enormous emphasis on "socialisation", on the supposedly supreme virtues of establishing close relations with others: the psychologically "successful" is less an individual than a citizen, linked by a hundred cords and filaments to his or her fellow-humans and discovering fulfilment in relations with others. This belief becomes coersive, and in many cases tyrannous and even morbid, in a society like the United States, with its accursed, anodyne cults of togetherness. But perhaps as the psychiatrist Anthony Storr pointed out, solitude may be a greater and more benign motor of creativity in adult life than any number of family relations, love affairs, group identifications, or friendships. We are continually beleagured by the promise of what is in fact a false life, based on unnecessary reactions to external stimuli. Inside every writer, to paraphrase the well-worn mot of Cyril Connolly, an only child is wildly signalling to be let out. "No man will ever unfold the capacities of his own intellect," wrote Thomas De Quincy, "who does not atleast checker his life with solitude."'

I wouldn't have thought Bob Hughes has a MySpace or Facebook page... and I can't help but agree with him despite the hypocrisy of me reaching out and writing this on a blog for a mercifully anonymous audience. Matthew and I being the old curmodgeonly bastards we are both can't stand facebook and don't want to have anything to do with it despite other booksellers appearing to use the cursed thing to their advantage.

We were very good all of our first year collecting e-mail addresses (over 300 at last count) and doing a monthly newsletter highlighting events and new books and 'building a community'. We even had a click to buy option on our e-mail newsletter that went through to our bookshop website (sadly no longer with us. It all seems such a long time ago and mistakes were made - big mistakes - but we are here to live and learn) So what % did you think all this brilliant marketing increased our sales by? Zero, nul, no fucking per cent at all. How much did sales increase this year with no marketing and no newsletter? I can't tell you how much for secrecy reasons but it was well into double digits.

So, the power of marketing, eh. This blog will tell you exactly what and how to market effectively and it's one of my must reads but for me and Matthew I am afraid we are lost and lonely causes doomed forever to wander the fringes of cyberspace rambling incoherently.

Hopefully the new shop will be so successful we can pay other people to run the empire and we can retreat Howard Hughes-like into our solitude and start being really creative.

"We are living in 2008..."

Eh? What's she on about? Oh yes. My overall impression of calm efficiency (ahem) has just been undermined by writing 11/1/07 in our customer order book. (Yes, we are all 21st century blogger whatnots but we still have to write things down in a book to feel confident about things. Orders go on the computer as well but...what can I say? We are paper and ink lovers at C & P)

"Only just!" I say, before adding with great confidence that the book we are in the process of ordering will be here on Monday. But she wants to give me her phone number "just in case something goes wrong".

Either I am giving off WORRYING vibes for someone about to open another shop or my massive wedding ring is not doing the trick...

Shouldn't I be working on the new shop?

Nah! Surfing YouTube is way better. Note to future employees though. Internet use will be strictly monitored!

The worst music video ever made

And the great shame is it's a brilliant song. If you listen to it with the lights off it rocks.



And as a comparison, what I reckon is a candidate for one of the best music videos ever made (highlighted before on this blog but obviously none of you bastards could give a damn. Just you wait for my detailed and exhaustive analysis of The Wire accompanied by many many clips).



Why this post? Well, Alison Krauss is on heavy rotation at C&PFM and one thing leads to another...

Song of the day

'I was driving in my car then I crashed and broke my spine'

Morriseys new single. Don't know what it's called but I heard it on the radio. He might have his problems but he can sure write a lyric.

Excitin' times

Matthews first day back today and the first real time we've sat down with the plans and worked out how many bays, tables, books, cards, wrap, computers, blah, blah we're going to have for the new shop. I'd forgotten just how much fun it is to decide what to stock and what not and how you want to display the stuff.

More good news is that the builder we used to fit out mk. 1 is free at the time we want to fit-out mk.2. Result! Off to see the site again this week. Getting very excited now...

...and all our lovely customers at mk. 1 have been coming in the last two days to say hello after our slacker-induced leisure time. Very agreeable.

A good day then.

(And a number beginning with 7! In the second week of January! And no sale!)

Deserving of its own little post

A commenter on the post below mentioned something that I thought would be better placed in a more prominent position:

From the LRB, 3 January 08. 'What I didn't do in 2007' by Alan Bennett (p.7)

15 September. Discover a good bookshop, Crockatt and Powell on Lower Marsh, a street opposite The Cut near the Old Vic, where I buy Henry James's 'The Lesson of the Master'.

Forgive me as I bask in a giant bathful of warm fuzzies.

Rip Van Powell

Yaaaaaawwwwwwwwnnnnnn. Damn, that was a good sleep.

Now, what was this bookshop business all about again?

That's SO Last Year...

Late as usual but here are books of the year (2007) from C & P. Well, from C really as P is still hiding out in a compound somewhere...no, can't say.

These are in no particular order but I have to mention Marie first or my life will not be worth living.

1: Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips

If all the folk we employ go on to reach such heights of stardom I will be annoyed but I have just about managed to accept Marie's literary brilliance. We sold more of your book than anything else this year Marie - can't wait for the paperback...

2: What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn.

I love surprises and What Was Lost tore me to bits (that's a good thing). Brilliant news that the powers that whatever have FINALLY let Catherine win something.

3: The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett.

Not only one of our top three selling books of the year but there are other reasons I feel Mr B deserves a mention. He came in to see us earlier in the year and wrote about it in his diary (published in the LRB) He left his phone number with me so I could ring him closer to Christmas and he could sign more copies for us - but in the end I bottled it...Just too nervous to ring the famous fella. But I'm sure we'll meet again some sunny day (maybe on the Fulham Road?)

4: Denis Johnson Tree of Smoke

One N storms back into the literary world with a National Book Award winning novel that was just too damned good for most reviewers/literary commentators this side of the pond to wrap their feeble brains around. Wake up you tw*ts - the man is a fu*king genius.

Ok, we are closed until 7th of Jan. If you see lights behind the shutters it's just us trying to sort out the accounts etc. Or having a big sexy party you're not invited to. Or something...

At last...

We have an event on Monday night, the London launch of Catherine O'Flynn's debut novel What Was Lost.

There's been plenty of review coverage already, all glowing, and the publisher Tindal Street Press have a good track record. (Remember Astonishing Splashes of Colour by Clare Morrall - Booker shortlisted a few years back? That was Tindal Street)

I started reading the book yesterday afternoon and I can't bloody put the thing down.

How many times do you read about "astonishing debuts"? Yeah, you don't have to tell me I know. Jaded is my middle name when it comes to publisher blurbs. But...

THIS IS AN ASTONISHING DEBUT.

It's brilliant.

If I were you I'd get down to Crockatt & Powell for 7pm on Monday. Not only will you get to hear Catherine read you can also get her to sign a copy for your collection (after she wins a few prizes these babies will be like gold dust) you can also buy one for yourself and if you have any friends buy copies for them too - it's one of those books.

An exciting book.

An astonishing debut...

Our bestselling book this week by a mile, even when you take out books sold at the launch event we had, is What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn.

It's a truly great read and deserves to do well all around the country.

There's a very positive review in the Guardian today and the Mail and Observer have already raved about it so it's not just us!

Come on people - let's make Catherine's book a bestseller - she's great, and so is her book.
Well, one retailer made a start months ago. Independent bookseller Crockatt and Powell is delighted by one of the longlisted novels.

"What Was Lost? Well I lost my mind and any sense of proportion when Catherine O'Flynn's brilliant debut passed through my eyes and into my brain earlier this year. What a book. We sold hundreds with a 'trust me - this is excellent' drive and put it in the window not once but twice. So far I have not heard a bad word from anyone. It is rare for a book to have such wide appeal and What Was Lost is a rare book indeed."

SHE WON SOMETHING!!!