Customer service

We received an invoice for a small sum this morning from one of the big wholesalers. I wasn't too sure what it was for so I phoned accounts.

'There's a charge for paying by credit card, 1.5%, which we pass on to the customer'

'My customers pay by credit card, there's a percentage charge but WE don't pass it on. Nobody does'

'Well, Gardners have always done it'

'Well, Gardners have just lost a customer'

They must have been charging us the whole time we've had the account and I've only just noticed. To say I'm a bit angry would probably understate the situation - un petit peu. Gardners have just gone from the potential for 6 figure business from us to 3 figures. Nice work. Well done.

When will they ever learn. It's the customers, stupid.

Inbox (763)

Of course, it was obvious that when we paid the bill the old email address would still work. Why then did we not think to check it for 6 weeks?

Message number 342 had an invitation to view a new book trailer. I may have mentioned in the past my dislike for these forms of viral marketing so I viewed this new one with interest.

Someone, please, MAKE IT STOP.

D'oh

We've had 2 websites. BT went and put up our old site without telling us. Arse. Thanks to Pierre for pointing it out. I've fixed it. It's ONLY www.crockattandpowell.com but if you do find you're way to the old one it will point you in the right direction anyway.

The Tortoise and the Hare

Ok, so we're a little slow sometimes but we get there in the end.

We've signed up to Google checkout and added a little button on the website so you can buy superstar author and ex-C&P girl Marie Phillips' best-selling debut novel Gods Behaving Badly. Go here to splash the cash.

(And before the comments come, yes I know I put an apostrophe in 'Gods' but I'm tired and it's friday and I don't know how to change it)

Dilemma

The new Naomi Klein book The Shock Doctrine is out at the end of september at a whopping 25 quid. It's published in hardback in the states 12 days earlier for $27.50 which these days is basically free. Which one do I get for the nice customer?

(Don't you think that's quite a discrepancy? At today's exchange rate you'll pay £11.13 more for the UK edition. Something not quite right there).

Football, sorry

Just saw the back page of the newspaper and chuckled to myself at poor old Man Utd scraping a measly 2 points out of six. YES! Poor old Spurs too - nil points - a lesson in what happens when you start believing your own press. And look at boring old Chelsea. Not any more it would appear. Do you think Abramovitch has spent some of his billions on killing off the old one and building a replica Mourinho - one who believes in attacking football? And Fulham, Matthew, on his hols, will be over the moon that the Sanchez revolution is in full sway. C'mon you cottagers. Who's going down? 'Boro, Wigan and Derby. Derby, not for want of application but just lack of talent. This years Watford. Who's going to win? I think Chelsea but you might not be able to slide a fag paper between them and Liverpool in april. Arsenal could still be the surprise package.

I need Matthew back, not because there's too much work for one but I need someone to talk football with. We heart football.

Zoiks

A new title from Yale University Press has just landed in store - a £45, 1600 page, new english translation of 'The most comprehensive account of Mozart's life and works in any language' first published in german over 80 years ago.

Do you know what? I'm tempted. Reminds me of that enormous biography of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro the first 200 pages of which are among the finest descriptive writing I've ever read. I'm quite attracted to enormous amounts of exhaustive research that's well written. Off on holiday in september for 2 weeks. Hmm. Trouble is the book on it's own would exceed my baggage allowance but I mean, really, who needs a change of clothes?

The bean counters give up Smoke-ing

London readers may well be familiar with Smoke magazine. This London peculiar is 10 issues strong now and Matt the publisher distributes the mag all round London - well, to those shops that agree to stock it. Waterstone's has never taken it and some surprising indies don't bother either. Why is beyond me as it is always interesting and genuinely entertaining and we sell dozens and dozens of copies.

Oddly, for a chain, Borders were one of Smoke's best customers. He'd go into a branch, do a quick stock check and replace what had sold. Virtually no work for Borders whatsoever and considering they would sell hundreds of copies probably about 600 quids worth of business (after discount) for every issue - easy money, n'est ce pas?

Well that didn't stop the bean counters who wrote to Matt a few months ago saying they were not dealing with small, individual suppliers any more and if he wanted to carry on supplying to Borders he'd have to get a distributor to whom they would do business.

Because Borders can't be bothered to process maybe a dozen invoices a year it's costing Matt 15% of his income from the magazine - about £300 a year just from them. Is Borders saving that much - I doubt it. A dozen invoices a year can't possibly add up to more than a couple of hours work - £30, tops. But because he's signed up with the new supplier he's also losing 15% from people like us who are happy to deal direct.

The other lunacy is he only lives half a mile away from us. Now he has to deliver to a warehouse in Hackney who then parcel up and send out a box back across town - about a 12 mile round trip.

The only upside to this idiocy is that maybe, and that's a big maybe, he'll get Smoke into the London Waterstone's and double his sales. Fingers crossed but they should have been dealing with him direct already. It is as they say a no-friggin'-brainer.

I should say as well that no one has asked me to write this and I am probably breaking a confidence by doing so but it's just too infuriating for it to go unknown just how these big companies are squeezing the life out of people who are really producing work as a labour of love. It makes me very, very cross.

BRILLIANT!

WoW. Just what I've been waiting for. COOL BEANS!

I've always DREAMED of reading snippets of books on 2 INCH SQUARE screens!!!!!!!!!!!

Life is now COMPLETE!

Teenage Kicks

Rumble Fish is on Film4 tonight, a film that made quite an impact on me as a teenager. I could go on about Coppola, Waits, Mickey Rourke, the enigmatic black and white photography. I could talk about the brilliant S E Hinton. But I'd be lying. There's only one reason to watch that film.

Diane Lane, wherever you are, I still love you.

Shh, it's the quiet time.

We've been waiting all summer for the quiet weeks to kick in. I think it's just started. Or maybe it's just that I'm in the shop by myself scaring customers away. Or maybe it's because it's raining and cold. Are they all away on holiday? Will be lucky to break 3 figures today. Oh for god's sake it's only half ten!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

Saturday morning, 11am. I open up. No internet. Unplug, plug, unplug, plug, fiddle, click, nothing. Phone BT, sorry account suspended. Why? Haven't we just paid you a very large sum? Sorry you'll have to talk to accounts. Accounts department opening hours 8-6 (ish) monday to friday. Fat lot of use on saturday.

Monday morning, 10am. Hello, How can I help. Oh, I'm sorry one of our systems just suspended the account for no reason.

(That was the precis version. Both phone calls took upwards of 20 minutes each)

Saturday Afternoon, 3.30pm. I phone one of our wholesalers. Hello, I'm expecting a delivery, was it despatched yesterday when I phoned the order through. No, that one will go out monday. To get saturday delivery you need to order £150 worth. Oh, it would have been nice if someone told me that when I PHONED THROUGH THE ORDER ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON. Sorry.

I swear, how do these companies get so big? If we were as shit as them we'd be out of business by year's end

India at 60

India isn't 60 years old it's thousands of years old.

Go, the Kids! - more videos

This lot look like they're having fun.



But it does sound slightly familiar. Hmmm. I reckon they're probably this lots grandkids.



Or, this sanitised but better quality version.

Random videos

Had one of my occasional YouTube marathons last night. Here are the music video highlights that I watched slightly more than once. First up was just a totally compelling bit of film coupled with a sort of 'how did they do that' wonder. It helps that I like Interpol anyway of course.



And this is just brilliant country and western women-done-wrong-by-cheatin'-men genius. Reba McEntire and Kelly Clarkson, what a pair of pair of lungs!



You don't think I'd leave you with just one Kelly and Reba outing do ya?



I really must get out more.

This time next year I'll be a millionaire.

Todays sales figure has an '8' in it. In the right place too. Not bad for the middle of the holidays. Might take the day off tomorrow. I'm my own boss don't you know. In fact I AM THE BOSS NOW! Matthew's gone orf for 2 weeks, first to deepest, darkest Brittany avec famille and then all by his lonesome in sunny Camberwell. So it's just me. No one else. Nada. Me me me. So I don't want any trouble, right. And if we keep hitting the heady heights of super sales figures like today then who knows, when he gets back he might just find himself out on his ear. Sorry mate, the business just doesn't need you any more.

'Powell's - Quality Bookselling for Quality Clientele'.

Has a nice ring to it.

Maybe I should put that order in for the Bentley. I hear there's a waiting list.

Okay, so I watch big brother occasionally.

These days when you hear or read the words 'The victim was/The suspect is' on TV or in the Newspapers it is usually followed by 'a black male in his 20's/teens'. In fact outside of victims/criminals/rappers/sportsman when do you ever see a 'normal' happy go lucky black kid just being a decent, friendly guy in any form of mainstream media.

Well, every night on channel 4 there is such a kid. Slightly geeky and awkward, under-educated rather than un-intelligent (he does actually have a keen intelligence) and apparently without malice or side, Brian seems to me a completely unique appearance in British media - a black male in his 20's who isn't some sort of victim or outcast and who is probably going to win the show because he's a lovely bloke. I would say 'well done C4' but you can't help thinking it's more luck than judgement on their part that it's turned out so well. But well done anyway.

And as for the BB detractors, yes I know they are attention seekers but surprise surprise there are people around who like being the centre of attention, in fact they're everywhere. Yet when they do start to forget there are cameras there they just hang about like the rest of us and really, who isn't interested in watching people. Just watching and watching. People, no matter who they are, are endlessly fascinating - not necessarily to talk too but just to watch - and in real life you'd get arrested for just watching and watching (stalking?). So again, well done channel 4. I only tune in for 30 minutes or so every other day but I really like it. It's like sitting in a cafe watching the day go by only with the same people walking past. But also, to all those who dismiss it without watching are they not making the same kind of dismissive assumptions that condemn young black men to a rigid set of personality ghettos?

I don't think it's only the Met that have to take a close look at their casual yet institutional bigotry and racism.

Ok, soapbox down now.

Closing down

Not Us!

Residents of Haringey have started a petition to try and persuade Waterstone's not to close down the Wood Green branch. Sign here if you're so inclined.

However, the key point in the petition for me is that the Waterstone's is apparently re-opening as an H&M. How much do you think they offered the golden W for the lease in a bit of prime retail real estate? What of the odds of them changing their minds? Not one to bet the house on...

Marie "Bestselling" Phillips

Our one and only ampersand Marie has made it onto the bestseller lists.

Not content with being number one at C & P she went on to becomes Foyles hardback bestseller and after one week of sales is 29 in the official Nielson charts.

At the time of writing she's 149 on Amazon but has been seen as high as 78.

Go Go Go Go Girl!

We have signed first editions in stock now and you know there's only one place you want to be buying those from...

What Was Lost on Booker Longlist

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.

We even had a letter from someone who had visited us by chance on a trip up from the Isle Of Wight:

"I'm just dropping a line to say how very much I enjoyed your recommended book What Was Lost...What Was Lost was a great joy: well-written, with enough plot to keep one's interest and, equally, enough good writing to keep one engaged. I loved the delineation of the characters - realistic but not stereotypes - and the way the various elements of the plot were carefully brought out one by one until the whole thing became satisfyingly complete without unnecessary coincidence or obvious plot twists."

So come on Booker judges - stuff McYawn and go for a book that a large section of the reading public are going to LOVE if you choose it for your prize.

Fever...and I told you not te MESS with the SUSHI

Just a few days to go before the sordid and gaudy carousel that is the Premiership kicks off for another season of unbeatable entertainment.

I know, I can hear you groaning but there's more...

As I never tire of telling people I support by far the greatest team the world has ever seen - Fulham FC. As usual the pundits have marked us for the drop. It happens every year. They look at the club and think to themselves something that goes a little bit like this:

There's an actual cottage in the corner of the ground.

This is a team with hardly any fans.

The fans that there are are all posh twits that only started watching football because they were conned into it during a massive shopping spree in Harrods.

They can't be a Premiership team can they?

Premiership teams are all hard and their fans break stuff and kill each other if they aren't divided by police on horses.

Needless to say they are wrong. (I could go off on one about all the reasons why FFC are so great but then you would see that life is too short)

Let's just say I am confident we'll be in the Premiership next season. I'll also point out that after beating Chelsea for the first time in a very very long time there was a pitch invasion. Posh twits don't invade pitches. And the Thames - we're by the Thames...I'm drifting aren't I...

But football is important and literary and linked to the occult.

It goes a little something like this:

David Peace publishes a book about Brian Clough's disasterous reign at Leeds Utd titled The Damned Utd.

Leeds Utd are relegated from the Championship to league 1.

David Peace releases an awesome new book Tokyo Year Zero and on the same day Leeds Utd are penalised with a 15 point deduction meaning they start this season at the bottom of the table on minus 15 points.

Now do you understand why it's so important to come and eat Sushi with David Peace on Wed 5th September at 1pm.

Shhhhhhh............

I'm not supposed to blog on this site any more, but I was just sneaking on to say how cool it is that 'What Was Lost', the second favourite book sold by C&P this year (favourite being mine, naturally), is on the Booker longlist. The C&P boys don't hold with literary prizes on the whole, but I am always curious about them as they are often a good opportunity to have my attention drawn to good novels which might otherwise have passed me by. The inclusion of What Was Lost this year shows that the judges have their heads screwed on, and inspires confidence that the rest of the list, most of which is entirely new to me, might be worth checking out. And don't forget What Was Lost was launched at C&P - all the best novels are, don't you know...

Pure, visceral loathing

It happens very rarely but when it does it's palpable. There are people that we (or maybe it's just 'I') meet that we take such an instant and irreparable hatred for. It's almost like a chemical reaction where the person standing in front of you is acting like some sort of catalyst for the nasty, primeval visciousness that lies buried at the base of the brain. And there's nothing you can do about it. This person was in yesterday and back in today and all I can think about when he's condescendingly droning on is Kathleen Turner in the 1989 movie, The War of the Roses:

'When I watch you eat. When I see you asleep. When I look at you lately, I just want to smash your face in.'

Normally I'm very calm, honest. Please don't let that put you off visiting C&P...

Slouching Towards Summer

I'm partied out. But there's a week in Brittany on the horizon and I think I can make it...

Finn is coming to the shop at 2pm and we're off to the park together. I think stumbling around a playground mumbling nonsense is all I'm good for at the minute!

Firsts...

The first customer of August was drunk. The way he stumbleswerved through the door brought my head up right away and he must have caught my dark glance because he came right out with it...

"I'm a bit pissed. Out all night...no sleep yet..."

I watched him as he staggered into the other room but he did seem to be browsing. Shoplifters are always easy to spot because they can't browse. They go from section to section with no logical connection between them. This bloke was looking at the fiction section. He was browsing. I left him to it and a few minutes later he came over with a copy of Dostoyevsky's The Idiot and Richard Yate's Revolutionary Road. A man of great taste! He paid and I helped him choose a card for his ex - then we had a great chat.

We discussed Revolutionary Road and the way the reader is drawn into the book, how impossible it is to avoid being completely snared by the writing. Disaster is there, right from the opening moments, but you just have to read on. We moved on to Yate's troubled life and the fact he used to write speeches for Robert Kennedy. (I avoided talking about his alcoholism given the circumstances) Another customer bought Suite Francaise and my new mate tried to sell her John McGahern's Amongst Women. Somehow his sales pitch of "This'll be the best thing you buy all year" failed to convince her and, after I explained he wasn't on commission she left - probably a little shaken by the early morning booze stink on his breath.

We chatted on and it turned out he used to go out with Jimmy Somerville. A discussion of fame and the effects it can have ensued. He then asked if I was gay and I said I wasn't. I showed him my ring and explained I was married.

"You could pass as gay" he said - which I took as a great compliment.

Then he left. But I felt August had got off to a good start...

The next first concerns the first party to celebrate the first book by our first lady Marie.

There was a great turnout (of course!) For some reason Marie seemed to be expecting one man and his dog but the place was heaving and the queue for signed first editions of her first novel started at 6:30 and kept Marie signing until 8:30. She was then able to mingle with her adoring public. The poor lass already had a signing related injury on her wrist - a kind of cross between a blister and a bruise - caused by a visit to the TBS warehouse.

It was just like the old days as Marie and I manned the till. In fact at one point Marie was seen selling her own book! A travesty I rushed across the room to rectify as soon as I'd finished saying hello to one of the numerous people who popped out of the woodwork and made an appearance. (Having kids kills the social life) The call to say Marie had a deal with Random House came while she was standing behind the C & P till so there was a beautiful symetry to the whole scene. Luckily we were so busy I only remembered I was going to make a speech after almost everyone (including Marie) had left. But Marie - we are thrilled for you and wish you all the best in what I'm sure will be a long career.

So it was a great day/evening and we do it all again tonight at the second launch of Marie's first novel on the second of August. Hmmm...doesn't have the same ring to it really...

Fools and their money

When my fellow Director and I come to take our company dividends at the end of the tax year one thing we will not be splashing out on is this.


Quite apart from the fact either myself or Matthew actually wear a watch why the hell would you want to spend 600 quid on a box that holds six. WHO NEEDS SIX WATCHES.

And people tell us books are expensive, jeeeez. Maybe we need to open a branch on Bond Street, start covering the books in baby Ostrich skin and sell 'em for 300 a pop to hedge funders and premiership footballers. Now that's a plan.

Short Books

We are told it's very bad form to judge a book by the cover. Shouldn't be done.

(Note to small publishers - especially poetry presses - People judge books by their covers ALL THE TIME. If the cover looks like a last gasp of 1970's design it will kill even the best of books)

But I have uncovered another obstacle to sales success. Being short.

Short novels, novellas as they are sometimes known, suffer from their lack of size. Folk pick them up, glance, look at the price and then put them down again.

Please don't judge a book by how long it is going to take to read. Some of the best books ever are very short and could easily be consumed in a lunchtime.

Feel free to add to my list below:

Silk by Allesandro Baricco

Jamilia by Chingiz Aitmatov

The Dead by James Joyce

The Man Who Would Be King by Rudyard Kippling

The Catcher in the Rye by JD Sallinger

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Raw Like Sushi...

Don't say we don't take good care of you...The track below, despite being an awesome reminder of my school daze (Naima Cherry went to my primary school - so did Zadie Smith but that's another story) is the best track from the album Raw Like Sushi.

Do you like beer?

Do you like sushi?

Do you find the idea of watching a thirty something bloke, totally in love/in awe of the author David Peace eating sushi for the first time in an attempt to impress said author?

Well why not come and hang in the Buffalo Stance with us on

Wed 5th September at 1pm?

Buffalo stance

Don't You Get Fresh With ME

Oh Dear...

I blogged about the similarities between our shop and the stalls on the market outside a while ago. But I didn't realise the confusion it could cause until today. A lovely old lady came in to see me this morning. She was looking for a book by the demon McKeith about "healthy" eating. We had a copy in stock but she said she wouldn't buy it just now..."maybe next week".

It was probably the fact I had the weekend off and it's Monday but I didn't realise she was mad until after she'd gone.

Now I get it. She has just asked Manny on the fruit and veg stall outside for about the one-hundreth time if he'll keep the book aside until next week.

"Ask him in there, the book man, he'll keep it for you love..."

"I think I will have that book, but not now. Maybe next week."

"These are carrots and stuff love, the books are in there."

"Maybe you could keep it aside for me?"

"The book man's in there!"

Marie Is No 1 Bestselling Author! ! ! !

Here are our top ten sellers - Marie is top! Ahead of Potter! (Harry you are so last week)

1: Gods Behaving Badly - Marie Phillips

2: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling

3: The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

4: Remainder by Tom McCarthy

5: The Book of London Lists by Nick Rennison

6: Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Adichie

7: On Chesil Beach by Ian McYawn

8: Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson

9: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

10: What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn

Incidentally I had a peek at Amazon this am. They are twinning Marie's book with Alastair Campbell's Blair Years. Possible subtitle Men Who Think They Are Gods Behaving Badly... Are they joking? If so it's quite a funny for a robot!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRGH - PHEEEEEEEEEEEEEW

1: Never ever ever believe what those telesales people tell you on the telephone about saving you money.

2: Pay the bill.

These are two things I have learned over the past couple of hours.

Get Yer Togas On Then...

Marie's book has landed - rush to C & P now to genuflect at the altar we have created in 'omage to the great ampersand Phillips...

The book is a thing of beauty- well done Random House chaps.

All welcome for party antics and "special" signed copies on Wed 1st August 6:30

Whatever did we do before the internet?

Erm, the same, only slower.

(Whoever the bad guy is in the Potter books is but a mere minion, a powerless demon compared to the all-encompassing evil that is BT who have held us to ransom with their bureaucratic satanicness.)

Anyway, the upshot is we still have no internet. What this means practically is that we have maybe 2 customers a day that we have to say - 'Can we get back to you tomorrow with that' (They don't appear to mind) - or we phone the publisher and ask them about a particular book. Again, slightly longer but the same result.

The other drawback is that we don't get to surf the web in our quiet moments. The upside to this is we get to pick up and read more of the books in the shop. The downside is... erm... we can't check our e-mails every 5 minutes? Hmm.

Still, I'm greatly missing doing 'research' on the net and can only hope and pray that our new, shiny ISP gets their ass into gear double quick and turns our sodding connection on.

In the mean time, life goes on pretty much as normal.

Our Harry Q, Marie, Germans, Darkened Rooms etc

Of course we didn't open at midnight or dress up as owls or anything. The wisdom of this decision was made clear on my arrival at the shop on Saturday morning. There was a bloke collapsed asleep/drunk on the pavement by the shop. Manny (from the fruit and veg stall) had affixed a notice to the shutters. Harry Potter Q starts here..."I couldn't resist it" he said.

I woke said bloke up by shouting at his ear for a few moments then softened as my slightly bleary eyes met his bloodshot and blistered gaze. I went and bought him a cup of sugary tea and sent him on his way. Still, I imagine that at midnight he wouldn't have been comatose, he might have been around the shoutymentalnutter that likes to eat smallwizardypeople point.

So into the shop. The phone was ringing. It was one of our fave customers Mr Lindroos calling to say we should abandon our "left-wing principles" (Mr Lindroos - we don't have principles of any kind!) and buy the Telegraph because Marie was in it. Indeed she was (along with a couple of mentions of our "groovy" shop) She was also in the Times and the book was reviewed in the Independent on Saturday. Harry who? Potty whattie? At C & P Gods Behaving Badly is the biggest book of the year by bloody miles...

But before we get to Marie's bestseller the Potter 'ting has to be dealt with. Not only was I on channel 4 news I ended up on German TV as well. It was pretty funny. I was about to go home when they called and pleaded with me to stay while they got a crew over by taxi ASAP.

I was a little nervous. "German TV? But I don't speak German."

"Do not worry. We will make you speak German later!"

Yes, the last few days have been, as they say, proper mental. As a result I am spending the beautiful sunny day that is today lying in a darkened room while Adam and Charlie build us a new sign for the shop.

The official launch for Marie's book is in the bookshop on Wednesday August 1st. Want a "special" signed copy? Then you know where to be.

If you are with BT change 'cos they are ripping off kids...or am I just tired and confused?

Well the phones are working again. Expert rip-off merchants BT wanted to charge £85 just to get out of bed. Luckily the Maz (my wife Mary) has loads of mates more manly then I and sent a couple of lads round to fix it - they charged us £30. For everything.

So you can phone us again. We are also in contact by e-mail - but it might take us a while to respond.

Why? Because Harry Potter is taking over the world. Normal service will be fully resumed once all the mental wizard wannabes have flown off on their brooms or whatever it is they ride these days...

Incidentally the discount bookshop down the road from us has cynically adopted our offer - kind of. They are going to sell the book for £9.99 and proudly boast that all profits will go to charity. But if they are selling the book for £9.99 how much profit will there be? That's right - ZERO - or close to it. If I were them I would feel a bit evil right about now.

As for Adam and I our halos are coming along very nicely thanks. Mine keeps blinking on and off though. Either it's faulty or it can read my not always squeaky clean mind...

Still no sign. We have learned that half our shop used to be a sweet shop. We have also learned that not having a shop sign, in fact having a great gaping scar where the sign should be, appears to have had no effect of sales. Proof that most folk don't look up often after all...

Fame and Misfortune or The Signs They Are A Changing...

You may or may not have spotted some children from Johanna Primary school and I on Channel Four news last night. Our Potter offer picked up some national TV coverage - can't be bad, despite the horrors of seeing yourself on the box.

Who is that mental case I wondered? Oh, it's me...

Just after the film crew left we decided we really had to do something about our shop sign. It has been falling slowly off for a while and recent high, gusty winds with more forecast led us to take it off. In the usual C & P way we did it ourselves and somehow managed to tear the phone lines apart at the same time.

We have NO PHONE OR E-MAIL.

More updates asap - we will try to get it sorted asap.

Trouble...

A Jaguar (car) has just been clamped opposite the shop.

I will keep a look out and let you know what happens when the owner returns...

Terry Normal and the Land of Absolutely No Wizards or Anything Like That by Salman Rushdie

This is one of the funniest things I've seen for a loooong time.

Be warned, take the 'harsh language' warning seriously.

First Finns First

It's great watching Finn discover things for the first time.

We had a barbecue on Saturday and cooked some corn on the cob. (Digression warning!) I couldn't find the fire lighters so I had to use the ancient method of twigs 'n' dried leaves followed by larger twigs and bits of wood to get things started. I am an excellent fire starter though the last year has seen less of my powers. On the one hand I was mostly covered in small baby and didn't want to fill his little lungs with smoke. On the other were anxieties about the energy required to barbecue food for a small family. Surely a plume of black smoke and a pile of charcoal plus a load of flames was not particularly efficient as a way of cooking?...Would I be contributing to the future death of the planet whilst simultaneously bringing a small geezer into the thick of it?

In fact a year on I still felt a little guilty as the dried ivy leaves crinkled and burned. But then I got the sausages on. Mmmm Sausages...

So we had a guilty barbie and Finn tucked into some corn on the cob. (We are growing some sweetcorn in our veg patch. But so far we look like growing two pieces of rather small corn. We also ate some potatoes from our crops in pots this weekend. A better yield this year but still not enough to feed us really. Why do we urban types do it? And get this - the sausages were from a farmer's market. In Peckham! How fu*ked up is that?)

Finn is a bright lad so he was quickly able to hold and eat corn in the correct manner. In fact he is probably a genius. No, I mean really, he is clearly far more intelligent than all the other kids - yeah even yours. My kid Finn is cleverer than your kid. He's going to go to a better school. The post of prime minister is already full - he'll be PM after his premiership football career is over. Jeez. Being a parent is even more ridiculous and exhausting than worrying about global warming and trying to live like a peasant from medieval times.

Alright alright, here comes the point. Have you ever seen a one-year old eat corn on the cob for the first time? It's great. He was actually growling and snarling as he tore into it with his front teeth!

Later, as afternoon turned slowly to evening, I found myself sat beside the still-warm barbecue with a pint of Guinness watching some ants crawling about on our compost heap. I got really into the compost, how it was just sitting there and gently rotting away. Slow, steady, just happening, moment by moment. Then I thought about the gasses it was slowly releasing that were KILLING US ALL. Then I relaxed still further and just thought fu*k it, it's a lovely evening.

Earlier in the day I had re-read Bertrand Russell on Schopenhauer and thought about John Gray and Adam and AC Grayling. Is the glass half-full or half-empty? That was about as deep as I got...

It is hard to know what to make of things. Ants on compost or global warming or anything really. Every time I try to think things through Finn goes and eats sweetcorn or says eeeieeio or falls over into some bushes and it all seems rather pointless.

I suspect the end of the world is not nigh. People are always talking about the end of the world. And it's always just around the corner. I'm pretty confident Finn will find a way...in fact he's such a genius he will probably be responsible for saving all mankind!

In the meantime I'll be booking Adam a ringside seat at the ICA this Thursday when AC Grayling and John Gray go head to head. Should be fun. But not as good as watching the little geezer chasing our cat Henry around the veg patch...

formatting

We had a little box on the website that took you to lots of recommends and review pages. Unfortunately there aren't enough hours in the day to keep those pages up to date satisfactorily, so it's gone. Instead we've got a new 'newsletter' page which gives a brief run down of what's going on and new and recent titles.

Most impressively I worked out how to write the word 'newsletter' sideways. I know it's not much but little amuses the innocent.

crockattandpowell dot com

What do men talk about in pubs?

Well, two such men on wednesday night decided that:

• Watching porn on late night uk cable channels was a bit like watching Match of the Day without the football i.e an hour and a half of throw-ins and goal-kicks.
• The death sentence is still not right for certain criminal activities but a 'devil's island' type scenario in the south atlantic would not be out of order e.g the Falklands.
• Dostoesvsky is 'meaty'.
• Microwaved lamb curry isn't actually that bad when supplied with rice, bread and potato - a combination of starchy carbohydrates not altogether uncomfortable when mixed together.
• Lock-ins are a good thing.

In the cold, hard, sober light of day such conversations should, of course, remain in the pub - like a lawyer/client confidentiality agreement - but the odd glimpse into this arcane world is surely necessary now and again.

Apis Books, Adam and Architecture

I love our shop! The space is so flexible...

We had a great event in the shop last night. The event was organised by Apis Books and involved readings from all three contributors to their second book Two Tall Tales and One Short Novel.

Heidi James, Kay Sexton and Lucy Fry all read brilliantly - you can tell they are well practised at audience control/interaction and this should come as no surprise really. Tales of the DeCongested is a monthly short story reading event that takes place at Foyles on Charring Cross Road once a month. It takes real guts to stand up in front of a crowd and read and these three are all survivors of that gruelling process - more than that they were chosen as outstanding talents to have emerged from the readings.

The shop converts from bookshop to reading/event space with great ease. Both our tables are collapsible as are the window display units. We put chairs out, other folk can sit on the window seat (space created by the removal of the window display units). One table is used to serve drinks etc the other is covered in books.

After the reading I closed up, went home, watched the news and went to bed. Alarmed at 6:30 by our Finn I'm up again and into the shop at 9am to start clearing up. Outside the market traders are setting up their stalls, placing the barrows, balancing a variety of cardboard boxes etc to display their wares. Inside I am doing the same! The chairs are cleared away, window units back in place, tables moved and our wares displayed...I think all good architecture/design should work in harmony with the environment in which it is placed. In making our shop so that it resembles a mix between a market stall, a pub and a living room Adam has achieved this.

It all works very smoothly and is a pleasure to be in - fortunate as I spend a lot of my time here.

Adam deserves great credit I think for designing the shop (and building significant parts of it) It works so well as a space and it can sometimes be exhausting at events listening to folk who are visiting for the first time complimenting us on "what a lovely shop" "what a great space" "where did you get that wallpaper" style comments.

He's not one to blow his own trumpet so I'm doing it for him.

Well done mate.

Weekend books

John Gray's Straw Dogs and his new effort Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia are the type of books where you have an argument in your own head with what you're reading as you're reading it. I was reading the two simultaneously over the weekend with growing irritation over the gaping intellectual holes at the centre of both of them. Due to this irritation and just plain 'couldn't be arsed'-ness to articulate to myself my grievances I ditched both of them without finishing but annoyed for not finding the time to properly deal with what I thought were Gray's woeful shortcomings.
Luckily that's where people like A C Grayling come in to take up the slack and expose shoddy, ill-thought out work. If only I had a) the self-discipline and b) the talent, to do likewise. Cheers A C. (And I'm not just saying that because he came to speak at C&P last year)
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The Gray books came off the back of a terrible month reading wise. I was looking forward to so many new books and was so disappointed over and over again. (I won't name any names). I should have taken my own advice sooner. After bigging up the Miranda July website as a work of perfectly formed webbiness I thought I may as well give the stories a crack - NoOne Belongs Here More Than You - and they are among the finest contemporary fiction I've come across in such a long time. The first story I read - Making Love in 2003 - had the hairs on my neck standing up and those that know me know that is indeed a truly rare event. They are disturbing, funny, sexy, surreal (in a good way) and told in a wonderful dead pan style that occasionally explodes in a small firework of imagery. July is also a director and was responsible for the 'quirky' indie film Me and You and Everyone We Know from 2005. I can well see how these stories could wind up as the darlings of Sundance but that is not a recommendation. On the page they meander and spin with a marvelous internal logic. Give up the day job, I say.
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And speaking of directors turned writers or vice versa, Carcanet has a new edition of Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Ragazzi about life in 40's Rome. It would be an understatement to say I'm looking forward to that. Please don't let me down.
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I finished the weekend with a Chekhov story I hadn't read - In The Gully. I'd tried it in a terribly translated Norton edition and given up after a few clumsy pages. After sourcing the out of print Penguin edition off abe I read it all. I'm not easily shocked or upset but this story had me near to tears. One devastating scene is almost unreadable. It was one of, if not the last of his stories. A great and terrible way to finish off another weekends trawl through the shelves of C&P.

Website of the Week

Someone told me the blog was in Timeout this week and here it is:

Superior Waterloo bookshop Crockatt & Powell maintains a regular blog in which it casts a frequently cafeinated eye over all manner of book-related business. As well as promoting its numerous in-store happenings and deals (buy the new Harry Potter from C & P at £17.99 and it will give £9 to the primary school at the end of Lower Marsh to spend on books for its library) , it ruminates on the latest industry news (controversial ex-Waterstone's buyer Scott Pack is a regular contributor), picks out forthcoming releases for praise, cogitates on themes in contemporary literature, records conversations had with people in the shop, and thinks aloud about US punks Black Flag. It's a real mix: defiantly local, proudly independent and well worth a look.

YAY! Thanks Peter Watts at Timeout for bringing this bollo*s to a whole new bunch of readers!

Minutemen - Ack Ack Ack

More Nostalgia...

A Symphony for Singing Bicycles

"They must be protesting about something or why would they all be dressed so similar!"

"These cyclists - all bloody lefties!"

"If there wus a copper at the end of the street there they'd get about £15,000 in fines for all going down a one-way street!"

Such were the confused and rage-filled comments of some of the Waterloo locals as the Scooterworks Singing Bicycles sped down Lower Marsh. I suppose it's predictable that the most eccentric celebration of London's Tour de France was interpreted as subversive...

...sounded/looked great to me though - Go! Scooterworks!

Not in my name

As Groucho said, I really don't want to be member of a club that would have me as a member.

It's the customers, stoopid!

We made an ordering error. A book that a customer desperately needed today for a birthday tomorrow wasn't going to arrive. Action stations! Matthew phoned around and a copy was secured at a certain shop for a mysterious Mr Perutz to collect by 2 o'clock. Armed with some book tokens I ventured off to the Charing Cross Road.

I found my way to the right desk and waited. And waited. And waited some more. You see, there were two members of staff but only one was attending to the queue of 4 customers waiting to be served. The other was merrily chatting away to a publishers rep ordering new titles for august and september, studiously ignoring us wallet clutching punters.

Now, I was under the impression that the reason our bookshop and other bookshops exist is to SELL BOOKS TO CUSTOMERS. FOR MONEY. Apparently this bookseller thinks bookshops exist so she can spend her day chatting amiably to publishers about lovely books and authors. She is by no means alone in this behaviour in the booktrade. Bookshops are a bit notorious for it and it's wrong, wrong, wrong. When are they going to get it through their thick skulls that it's all about THE CUSTOMER, STOOPID!

What are friends for?

In this MySpaceFacebook world where friends are hoarded and displayed like trophy heads I am constantly forced to ask the question above.

Particularly when they start telling people they have just met at parties in bookshops about embarrassing incidents from your teenage years...

Adam and I seem to be gorging on nostalgia at the minute. I think it's probably a sign of some sort of mid-life crisis - kind of worrying as it suggests an early death for both of us.

So thanks to Toby, here's a little more.

I was in the park with a girl and we were engaging in the kind of lengthy tonsil tennis that teens enjoy. She was a brave girl. At that time I had long greasy hair, didn't wash much - in fact I probably should have had a health warning stamped on my forehead. (Amazing what being in a band can do for a spotty, greasy kid!) Still we were engrossed and rather enjoying ourselves when shouts of Eurgh, Dirty, Eugh Look At That etc penetrated my love-scrambled teenage brain.

We parted, drew breath and received a volley of verbal abuse along the lines of Dirty Lesbian etcs. A group of blokes were shouting and gesticulating at us. They came closer in a vaguely threatening way. Then they stopped...

"I think that one's a bloke" said meathead no 1.

"Fuckin 'ell" said another.

They left.

So there you have it. I was mistaken for a lesbian.

I like to think it was a useful lesson for a white middle-class bloke to experience a bit of ignorant prejudice. But some of my mates just think it's bloody funny!

Timothy Phillips - Beslan: The Tragedy of School No 1

Finn isn't the only one staggering about this morning. There was a great party at C & P last night to celebrate the publication of Timothy Phillips's new book on Beslan. Now this does not sound like the kind of book to party for - the shocking events at Beslan appalled the world - and yet there is real cause to celebrate the existence of Timothy's book. After working for the BBC translating accounts from survivors for a series of documentaries he has used the words of the people of Beslan to construct a compelling account of the tragedy. It is, as the editor said, a necessary book that places the Beslan massacre in context and gives voice to those most affected. Essential reading for anyone attempting to understand the complex politics of the Caucasus.

So we were pleased to party hard with Timothy and his many friends. He's a great bloke, he's written a great book and I'm sure there will be many more great books to come in future.

In fact Granta are now officially the hardest partying publisher. Not only did they drink all the wine for the event, they drank into our emergency shop supply. And then dragged those still standing off to the pub next door...

Granta - we salute you! I was also pleased to meet Lynsey Hanley who did a great job selling her superb book Estates to my mate Toby who grew up on one and also to the one and only Lee Hill (author extraordinaire of the greatest Terry Southern Biog EVER WRITTEN - check all the references on this Wikipedia entry) who is going to buy another as soon as I order it in for him.

Thanks to Toby and Lee for attempting to introduce me to Facebook. Sorry lads, I'm too busy for all that socialising stuff...

One Small Step for a Boy Means Big Trouble for Mum and Dad

Just days before his first birthday Finn has started walking. This is great to see but also means we need to embark on a new phase of flat safety. Now that his head will be on a new level there are a whole load more corners etc to bang into...

More Kate Nash

This is either one of the best songs ever written or one of the worst.

How to do a web thing for your book

After moaning about book trailers a few posts back I thought I'd link to an author website that promotes their book just about perfectly. HERE. (Thanks to Jon who flagged it up a few months ago on the Bedside Crow - I'm only reminded of it now as a customer just bought one)

more at twiigs.com...

Bugger

At one, very early, point in my life this was my favourite song. It's now 30 YEARS OLD. Thirty. As in three - oh. I really don't like this ageing nonsence.

Bleeeeeuuuurrrrgggghhhh

So much to rant about today I don't know where to start - Bad translations, Global warming, useless management, dodgy philosophies...

Maybe I should just keep my thoughts to myself.

When they asked if I'd like an Espresso what did they think I was going to say?

...a struggling father, short of sleep, phoned by the friendly man from the Telegraph.

"Would you like an Espresso..."

"Oh yeah, mate, that would be fantastic cheers."

Now it looks like we've started a revolution in publishing or something...

And to think I went into bookselling for a quiet life!

nostalgie

Been watching the 7 ages of rock and revelling in a 15-20 year old nostalgia of great tunes of the time. Personally I love the Smiths, Roses and Suede from that show.

But I was watching and there were a bunch of blokes in their 30's and 40's blabbing on about how great britpop was in the 90's and I was getting distinctly bored. It's in the past and it hasn't carried well... Flicking on to a music channel straight after led to this song which I heard a while ago and love. Nostalgia is fine but it's a bit like a concrete block tied round your neck.

On the other hand am I too close to 40...? This is a great song by a barely 20 something and I'm already appropriating it.
It's just wrong. We should know our place. Stuart Maconie is wrong. This shit annot be shared. Time and a place...

Out Stealing Horses

From time to time I find myself in the bizarre position of not knowing what to read. I wander about the shop with books all over the place and none of them appeal. I go to the shelves at home and there's nothing that leaps out - I'm in a book funk...

I was in a book funk yesterday and grabbed Out Stealing Horses from our table. I have had my eye on it for about a year but despite the fact it won the Independent foreign fiction prize and then the IMPAC I hadn't quite managed to read it.

Well, one rainy day later it's read and all I can say is

GO OUT AND GET HOLD OF A COPY NOW!!!

NOW!!!

I SAID NOW!!!

A beautiful, sad, lovely, warm, snowy, tree-filled classic. Extra Norwegian poignance can be added by listening to Susanna and the Magical Orchestra's album Melody Mountain. Their version of Love Will Tear Us Apart added to Per Petterson's storytelling had me close to tears.

Our pernicious influence is spreading like a particularly unpleasant fungal infection

Virus-like, we've crossed the channel. An ex-colleague (hello Karen) was in the venerable Shakespeare & Co in Paris and noticed our full-page Guardian spread sellotaped to the wall, pride of place. We even have photographic proof.

Mwhah-hah-hah-hahhhhhh! Soon, the world will be ours!!!!

A few things

Tony Curtis and Dannie Abse were in the shop reading last night from their most recent Poetry collections and in Abse's case his new memoir/journal of the time following his wife Joan's tragic death in 2005 in a car crash - The Presence.

Tony was a great reader but I'm sure he wouldn't mind me saying just what an exceptional reader Dannie is. Listening to him really brought his poems and his journal entries vividly to life with a rich yet sometimes tremulous voice. It really was top drawer stuff and the best reading I've ever heard.

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Self-Published Novel Turns Out To Be Really Rather Good Shock! After my posts a few weeks ago about self-publishing a brave young woman phoned and asked if she could send us her self-published novel, Imagine This by Sade Adeniran. It's very well produced and designed but more importantly it's actually excellent to boot. It's such a pleasure to open this sort of thing and read not only a compelling story but someone who can really, properly write. She tried going down the publisher route and didn't get anywhere - somehow it fell through the cracks. I don't think that will be the situation for too long. Keep an eye out.

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Ouch! I'm sure I read an article a short while back where someone from Fopp was telling the journalist how swimmingly everything was going. Must have been a last ditch attempt to drum up custom. Anyway, staff from over a hundred shops have been locked out and will not be paid this month. Shame on those at the top, I bet they've feathered their own nest plenty.

But it seems to boil down to corporate greed and hubris too. In february they expanded by buying the 60-odd stores of Music Zone after they went into administration. Will these fools ever learn?

Where do you live?

A lad with a very strong London accent phones us:

'Would you like to take part in a survey on the congestion charge for Transport for London?

'Yeah sure, why not'

'Which borough do you live in?'

'Southwark'

'No, which borough do you live in?'

'Southwark is a borough'

'Is that in London?'

'Yes, South-walk is in London'

'Oh, SouthWalk, yeah. Ok are you between the ages of 16 and 29?'

'No'

'Is there anyone in the household who is?'

'This is a shop, it's a business, no there aren't'

'Okay. Sorry to bother you'

TfL, business as usual.

ps This is a blog of some considerable quality.

Mary Queen of Shops

Brilliant living in London.

I was at a concert in a small church in North London, listening to my mum and dad sing in their choir. The small family were sat at the back in case Finn decided to add an extra soprano line which he did - but not before Mary (my wife) had spotted Mary Portas (Mary Queen of Shops) a couple of rows in front of us...

I've been watching the program and enjoying it a great deal and now there she was - out of the telly and into real life. Well there's no point messing around in these situations. At the interval I went and said hello.

I'm sure she clocked my extreme lack of fashion sense and fast disappearing hair but even so, we had a pleasant chat. I said we'd been in Vogue under the heading Boutique Bookshops and that we were trying to present and sell books in a way that chimed with a lot of the advice she gives out to her fashion victims on the program. We agreed that Daunt Books sets the benchmark at present. All good.

The trouble is she said she would drop in next time she's in the area. Adam and I are quaking. (Well I am) Would we survive a visit from the Queen of Shops? If she does turn up I hope she goes easy on us...At the same time I'm sure she would have something useful to say...

I'll keep you posted.

When A Good Book Ends I Die A Little - Failure

I would be a fool and in the wrong business if reading books didn't excite me, but sometimes it goes a bit too far.

I have recently read two books that were so great I almost wish I hadn't read them. The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano and David Peace's Tokyo Year Zero. Both left me feeling down for days because they were over. I've read them now. It's not the same reading a book the second time, in fact I hardly ever do it.

Finishing The Savage Detectives would have been far far worse had I not had Tokyo Year Zero to follow. There was something about that book that really resonated. Probably all to do with the inherent failure involved in writing. Try as you might, the words are never quite able to convey the feeling - believe me I've tried. (Ten years writing the same novel four times and it was still bad!) The obscure poet the poet heroes of the Savage Detectives are looking for remains mysterious. The only poem of hers they ever see contains no words, only abstract symbols. There is something achingly sad (I think) about writing and the literary world in general. If there is anything concrete to be gained from reading it is often hard to measure, let alone grasp hold of.

David Peace seems to be interested in failure as well. GB84 was all about the miners strike - the tipping point in the recent failure of the left. The Damned Utd examines the only period in Brian Clough's life when he failed - his time managing Leeds Utd. Tokyo is set in a recently defeated Japan and explores some of the psychosis such a massive defeat unleashed amongst the survivors. Even the Red Riding Quartet could be seen in terms of failure - the police took a very long time to catch the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe. Then there is that famous Beckett quote, a favourite with Zadie Smith - "Go on failing. Go on. Only next time, try to fail better."

There is something undoubtedly heroic about failure. Supporting Fulham is one way to become acquainted with the positive aspects of failure. Trying to write a novel is another.

At any rate, failure is an interesting subject I think.

What really matters about failure is what you do after.

I used to stay awake at night worrying the shop would fail, after all that's what everyone seemed to expect when we opened. Now I sleep soundly (or at least the things that wake me tend to be small boy shaped rather than book shaped) for a couple of reasons. The first is that the shop is doing well and we are succeeding. The second is that having stuck our necks out and gone for it I now see that failure is impossible if you refuse to fail.

As Beckett says on another occasion:

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better."

I will finish that novel one day!

Boxes of Lovely Books

...some great stuff in today.

Some from the US, always a bit of a treat.

And some from Book Works.

I like it when that happens

'Do you have the Autobiography of Malcolm X?'

'Yes we do.'

'Oh Wow, that's great. I've been looking for it everywhere and nobody has it. Thanks.'

'You're welcome.'

New E-Mail Address

As of today we have a new e-mail address.

info@crockattpowell.com is dead

long live info@crockattandpowell.com

It's a long story involving David (us) and Goliath (BT)

As in the story, David Won!

Arise, Sir Adam. Arise, Sir Matthew!

I suppose we shouldn't say but we were contacted by the powers that be to see if we would be willing recipients of a queen's birthday bauble for our gallant services to the independent book trade.

Unfortunately due to our innate distrust of, and contempt for, authority, hierarchy and the monarchy we had to politely decline the offer.

Still, it's nice they thought of us.

A Dud Avocado

It was a hot, peaceful,optimistic sort of day. I was sitting in my box with all the other avocados thinking how fantastic it is to be here. One minute I was hanging on the tree, just starting to think I'd never do anything, go anywhere or be anything and then it happened - I was picked!

In some ways it would have been better to end up somewhere more romantic than Cruzon's fruit and veg grocery in Camberwell. (I always dreamed of Paris and the movies.)

But South London will just have to do. At least Mr Cruzon is a lovely man. He gave me a good rub earlier so my skin shines brightly. My mother always used to say "If you have a bright and shiny skin you just never know what might happen" - not that I ever paid too much attention to her.

Hello, now there's a sight. Mum and her little lad. What a handsome chappy! Oooh, he likes the look of me. Oh gosh, what a lot of teeth for one so small. It looks like - OUCH! Little bugger bit me! Now I have tooth-marks in my skin...

At least mum has a bit of decency and is going to buy me.

I wonder what sort of house they have? My fantasy was always ending up on a plate at the Ritz, being nibbled by the lacquered lips of a film starlet.

Hmmm...a basement flat. Not bad inside though. Bit of a mess. Obviously someone likes their books. And the fruit bowl is ok. The bananas are rather over-friendly but the apples are a solid bunch.

Well my time has come! But mum, what are you doing? The little bloke is chewing me again! Don't you know you have to cut the skin off? Ah, back in a civilised grasp. She's chopped a chunk off the top. I'm heading back to the little gob again...

...but he's just had a lick and chucked me straight on the floor. That really is no way to treat a lady. Now dad has picked me up. What! He's running me under the tap. Oh, that's really classy - back to little gob for another go. Aargh, he's chucked me on the floor again. I can't take any more of this, I'm off...

I don't know why he keeps chucking it on the floor Maz, usually Finn loves his avocado. Maybe it's a dud?

Weekend entertainments

Great to see a tubby 37 year old beat the rippled, muscle bound Tiger Woods on sunday at the US Open. Normally I'm a big fan of Tiger but he's becoming the wrong shape for golf. Granted he's an extraordinary physical specimen now but it still just seems out of sorts. And here's a quote from Angel Cabrera, the Argentinian winner:

'Some players have psychologists, some have sportologists - I smoke'

A C&P kind of sportsman.

And I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3. Totally and utterly mad bonkers crazy. A lot of the bad reviews have focused on the incoherent plot but to me, who cares. It's like someone gave 150 million dollars to Fellini and told him to make a pirate film. I honestly could have sat through another three hours of it.

Peace at Crockatt & Powell

David Peace will be signing copies of his awesome new book Tokyo Year Zero (first of a trilogy!!!) at Crockatt & Powell on Wednesday 5th September at lunchtime.

Yes I know it's months away and there's plenty of exciting stuff before then (Marie's book for example) but I just hadtatellyou...

Us or Them?

An interesting article here.

What can I say? Nobody pays us to put things in the window! In fact it's full of art books from a local college at the moment.

Know what? We put art books in the window and sales last week were up by over a third on last year. (My maths is too crap at this time on a Monday to work it out exactly) Maybe We'resostoned should try acting a little less like money-making commercial hard men? They might just make a little more money...

Waterstone's

Just had a visit from a very angry ex-colleague from my Waterstone's days. Head office has issued a new contract to everyone with some fairly stringent/insulting terms. No over-time and booksellers will be obliged to work bank holidays and christmas day at normal rates. Pay-cuts across the board which mean that a bookseller with 10 years at the company will now be earning the same as someone with 10 minutes experience if they don't sign up. The intention is to keep a very thin layer of experienced company people and populate the shops with a high turnover of cheap staff - to all intents and purposes they're turning it into Smiths.

Everyone has to re-apply for their jobs. Those that refuse to sign the new contract will be left in a state of limbo and reduced to the status of a part-timer with no benefits or holiday.

There is quite a revolt at Gower st, Hatchards and Piccadilly but smaller branches seem to be submitting with barely a whimper. The status of Bookseller, never that high in the first place, is being reduced to the level of a till monkey. What annoys my ex-colleague even more is that Waterstone's sell themselves on the basis that they are passionate Booksellers and that there is experience and knowledge in store, clearly not a view shared in Brentford.

Personally, I couldn't give a toss, what Matthew and I do here is a million miles away from that outfit. If they want to turn into Smiths that's their business but as a favour to a fellow bookseller who is leaving Waterstone's after 12 years to set up his own shop (hooray!) he wants to tell as many people as possible just how appallingly they are treating their staff. Hopefully this will help.

Peace in the Middle East

My parents live in Doha on the Persian Gulf. They were over for a visit a few weeks ago and mum left behind some toothpaste. It was colgate but all in arabic. I tried it this morning and there are enough chemicals in it to strip the enamel off your teeth.

Maybe if their toothpaste was as benign as ours then all the conflict and strife in this disturbed region could be brought to a welcome end.

I Don't Believe It

I've just wasted an hour writing two posts about what I love/hate about the net and they have vanished into the ether.

But I'm not bored at work, I have a shop to run, boxes to unpack, people to find books for...

Grrr.

Two Posts Vanish

Love/Hate

I don't believe it! I just spent an hour writing a post about what I loved and hated about the net and then accidentally deleted it!

In a nutshell...

What worries me about "social networking" and the world Mark and Emma describe in the comments below is that most of these things are about selling stuff. (Or watching how people network and collecting the info for market research)

Most of the subversive elements of the internet have been controlled. (We would never be allowed to blog if we worked for a chain bookshop for example)

I am a fan of paper, paper and metal money, flesh, blood, paper books etc because these things are very hard to control.

Janet Davey

We launched Janet Davey's new novel The Taxi Queue at C & P last night.

It was a night made brilliant by two things - a perfect author and a fantastic publisher. It also helped that Janet had so many good friends who not only loved the shop but were not afraid to show support for us and Janet by buying plenty of copies.

So thanks - to Janet and to the great folk at Chatto and Windus.

THIS is a trailer

There is a new trend for publishers both large and small to produce a video trailer for a new book. I have seen a lot of them now and they are all, without fail, rubbish. They range between third rate powerpoint presentations and clumsy interviews. The hope is that these go on youtube and a kind of viral marketing leads to increased visits on their websites. The only reason I click through is to see if the publisher is as incompetent as their hopeless video.

So beware, if you're not as visually literate as the audience you're peddling to and you're not prepared to spend hollywood money on a professional production be very careful. And remember, the people who are telling you your video is great were going to buy the book anyway.

Vanity/Self publishing

I put up a post about a week ago on the merits or otherwise of vanity publishers such as AuthorHOUSE. We received an e-mail from a concerned self-publisher worried about getting his work into bookshops (although he seems to be doing fine already).

Here's part of my reply:

Sorry for taking so long to get back. You must have assumed that was symbolic of our responses to small publishers! Luckily, we are just very busy at the moment.

The truth is we are very open to any suggestions and will look at everything that is presented to us. However, we can usually tell within 5 seconds or half a page whether or not whatever it is has any merit. About 99% of stuff we see from the vanity press is total garbage written by people who haven't gone to any effort to really work out how they want their work to work. These types also seem to think they're in possession of some undiscovered genius. It's not called vanity publishing for nothing and these writers tend to be deluded narcissists.

However, I should really have titled the blog 'vanity publishing' instead of 'self publishing' as real self-publishing is a different kettle of fish altogether. If you have the genuine belief in your own work and you set up your own 'publishing house' and you research and find printers and you go and visit bookshops without being jumped up and pushy then you would have every chance with us. The work produced through this route is usually at the very least, interesting. A lot of small presses we stock have some excellent content which is good but a lot are also clueless when it comes to typesetting, design and covers which is not so good and also very important for getting your stuff stocked by bookshops.

Which I suppose is where the self-critical bit comes in. You have to be strong in your convictions but you also have to be aware of your shortcomings and if there are areas where you fall short then don't be afraid to get help and if you're not getting help because of financial constraints in the long run it will be a very false economy.

Overcoming Cormac McCarthy

I've never been too fond of meeting authors or hearing them speak. There's too much of a risk that if they turn out to be dicks I can never read their books again as all I'd have in my head is an image of them and their dickishness. That apart, Roland Barthes wrote a very interesting essay that more or less sets my stall out for me regarding authors more articulately than I could ever manage.

However, strangely enough the absolute opposite may just have happened. Regular readers may be aware of my antipathy towards pulitzer prize winning author Cormac McCarthy and his punctuationless prose. Indeed it is a fairly long running bone of contention here at C&P. McCarthy's The Road was recently chosen as an Oprah's Book Club choice and as part of this privilege the reluctant and shy McCarthy was obliged to undertake an interview with Ms Winfrey. You can watch it here although you do need to sign up to Oprah's Book Club to do so.

The thing is, is that I watched expecting my prejudices to be fulfilled but unfortunately McCarthy turned out to be a thoroughly nice and interesting bloke. Watching him squirm trying to politely answer Oprah's inane questions I found a whole new level of respect. So much so that I'm going to try The Road Again!

I suppose the thing to do is not just to admit you were wrong but to admit it in public too...

Sore arse

A pleasant sunday morning jaunt on the old penny farthing.

Tusting Bargets

Oh I do like to sell more books than last year!

Up yours Barkin!

Teenage Kicks...

I can't go to work

Dah Dah (that's the sound of heavy guitar chords)

The boss is a jerk

Dah Dah

I ain't got time for this school

Dah Dah

The fuckers are fools

I'm going to... explode I've had it!

I lie around with the TV on

Dah Dah

I don't do nothin', I just hang around

Dah Dah

etc etc

Black Flag were an inspiration in my teens. We used to cover that song (I've had it) and also Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie The band I was in for a while went through various phases, the most successful of which (our crowning moment of glory was a gig at the Brixton Old White Horse watched by a few devoted fans and some rather confused looking locals) was a hardcore punk phase. We were truly horrendous and had the plug pulled on us mid gig on one occasion when we refused to stop playing. I left when I got a girlfriend out of it!

I love punk. I love the DIY ethic and I guess the punk ethos is still a driving force. (Hard to see behind my disguise as mild mannered, bespectacled bookseller but I shi* you not!)

Get out there.

Do it.

Don't fake it.

Crockatt & Powell

It's not all doom and gloom on the front line

We had a delivery today from our usual wholesalers - 10 boxes. Buried in no 6 was an invoice for Waterstone's Harrods, a mistake obviously. I picked it up expecting the usual miserable news of Waterstone's excellent terms only to be pleasantly surprised to see that we had a better discount than them - by more than 1%. Let me repeat that.

WE HAD BETTER TERMS FROM A SUPPLIER THAN WATERSTONE'S, HAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rock on.

Brazil make sexy pop, yeah

This is my new favourite song. They're from Sao Paolo.

Godless heathen

Might have known...

You scored as Scientific Atheist, These guys rule. I'm not one of them myself, although I play one online. They know the rules of debate, the Laws of Thermodynamics, and can explain evolution in fifty words or less. More concerned with how things ARE than how they should be, these are the people who will bring us into the future. Scientific Atheist 100% Angry Atheist 58% Spiritual Atheist 50% Theist 25% Apathetic Atheist 25% Militant Atheist 8% Agnostic 8% What kind of atheist are you? created with QuizFarm.com

(thanks Marie for the link)

A Big Shout, Self-Criticism, Bolano, Laryngitis, Walking and Plenty of other waffle Adam thought he escaped by taking the day off...

The BIG SHOUT goes out to Deborah our Turnaround rep who turned up today with a massive Latte that has fuelled me through the first half of the day. Thanks!

Self-criticism is one of my fave subjects. If it wasn't for the bastard voices only I can hear yelling "You're Crap You're Crap" I would have self-published about four novels by now. As it is I wrote the same one four times then gave it all up to start a bookshop. I also need to be severely reprimanded for blaming my wife, Mary, for the loss of David Peace's Tokyo Year Zero. I found it. It was at the shop all along. I'm a git, sorry, must try harder etd ad infinitum...

I finished The Savage Detectives! Oh what a wonderful novel. Impossible to describe really. Imagine bumping into a long-haired pair of poets who convince you to go for a drink for a discussion of Horace's poetic works only to find yourself waking up in Mexico driving fast down a desert road with a prostitute who informs you that her pimp is about to catch up with you and kill you with the knife he uses to measure his penis and you have an indication of the ride to expect from this one...Bolano - I salute you.

Marie has the lurgie. I spoke to her on the phone and she sounded like somebody else.

Finn can walk! Well, almost. He has a trolley full of bricks he pushes around.

I think that's enough already...

Self-publishing/ self-criticism

There is a place for self-publishing. It's quite nice if somebody has written a history of their family and they want to have it as a book to pass on to children and relatives. If somebody has written a manual for the kind of machine only dozens perhaps hundreds will use. Maybe someone has written a local history of a village that will only be of interest to people from that village. Yes, there are a few select areas where self-publishing is a good idea.

Unfortunately, most self-publishing is pure delusion.

We had a submission this morning from a woman who has published a novel through an outfit called AuthorHOUSE and was wondering if we'd be good enough to stock it. She can't write. I mean she really cannot write. Just because you can put words down on a page in a legible order doesn't mean you're a writer. Somebody should have told her and this is the bit where I get annoyed. I don't know how much AuthorHOUSE have charged her but I imagine it's not cheap - she's had bookmarks printed and flyers - and it's fraud. They've led her to believe that paying to have her book 'published' will help her in a writing career. This is just plain deception.

Of course there are exceptions - GP Taylor started out self-published and more or less through sheer force of will got himself a deal and sold thousands - but they are few and far between. If you look on the AuthorHOUSE link above and click on the box that asks what is the most important reason to publish I reckon only one or two of the answers is remotely acceptable. The rest are offering the bait of career and it's ripping people off.

Of course one should be self-critical enough to realise that you can't write/paint/compose to save your life. There's nothing wrong with that. There comes a time in all our lives when the realisation hits that you will never be a Movie Director (I was 23). That's OK, move on.

But if you really, really, really still want to write because you have to well, you're reading the answer - it's what the internet was invented for, it's free and who knows, if your ramblings get read and people like it then you may well get published anyway by somebody who wants to try and make you a bit of money not fleece you from it.

Book business

We have been going on about the possibility of Print on Demand for backlist and out of print titles and what an opportunity that gives small independent bookshops for over a year now. We've had nay-sayers and grumblers but we've never been shaken from our conviction.

This just in from the trade press today. Amazon have gone into pod in a big way because it's bloody obvious - you don't have to stock any physical books. So much of what Amazon sells is the odd 1 or 2 of something they might as well keep everything as a digital file and then print a book as and when an order comes in. The big news is that they have an agreement with among others Collins and Wiley, huge publishers. Probably the type of agreement we've been banging on about for the last year.

So, come on publishers, if we buy a machine will you license your backlists to us? How hard can it be?

In Praise of Torment

Story here about the importance of suffering to a good relationship and a happy life.

Reminds me of something I read about Andrei Platanov recently:

"TORMENT is a key word for Platanov. Life, existence, being HERE is torment, anguish, albeit a creative, fruitful torment, a heroic anguish. Another key concept is "patience" or "endurance". One must live and be, one must endure. According to Platanov, one must not only endure grief, sorrow, need and other forms of unpleasantness. One must endure happiness, love and pleasure."

I could add a few things to Platanov's list.

One must endure people like the "artist" I just had a "conversation" with.

One must endure Chelsea Football Club.

One must endure Amazon.

One must endure independent bookshops (and booksellers) being such moaning arses!

Feel free to add to my list of things that make you suffer but make you stronger...

War & Peace

I was 2/3 through David Peace's new novel Tokyo Year Zero when we took a train down to Essex to see some family.

On the way back the train was packed. There were no seats at all and many folk were standing. Finn was in one of his wriggly moods and I was having trouble keeping him in my arms when a lady kindly offered us her seat. I pretended to do the gentlemanly thing by suggesting Mary sit down with Finn but really it was a cunning plan to get back to my book! I had to stand all the way to Liverpool St but it was worth it - Tokyo Year Zero is yet another astonishing achievement from Peace.

Back in London meant the return of Finn (ie total chaos) and for some reason I stuffed my book into Mary's bag. The next day it was still there, weighing her down, so she took it out and put it somewhere...

Probably "in a safe place" because it has completely vanished!

This morning I asked her if she had found out where it was yet. "No, I looked everywhere."

But it's a proof. They are not easy to get hold of. If I ask the publishers for another they will suspect I sold the first on e-bay. (They don't know that I have forgotten my Paypal password do they.)

I NEED TO FINISH IT DARLING.

I MUST FIND IT.

I MUST.

OTHERWISE IT'S WAR!