a big thank you to liz hurley

Elizabeth Hurley was doing the 'My London' spot in the ES Magazine this week and in the 'home comforts' section she says she loves bath oils and books and that she goes to the The Pan Bookshop on Fulham Road!
I'm pretty happy about this as she also namechecks Luigi's, the italian deli acrosss the way and that's pretty cool company to keep.
thank you Liz.

p.s go to Jo Malones on Sloane Street for the bath oils

cheers
julian

summer fair and harry potter day

Hi Everyone,
I know that most of you will, by now, know that the next and final Harry Potter goes on sale at various stores around the country at midnight Friday 20th July.

Well, I hope I see you all there as our queue has always been- and will be again- one of the most enjoyable to be in: competitions, refreshments and voting- yep, you all have to do some work but will be fun, I promise you. So reserve your copy and design your fancy dress, rehearse your song or intuit your haiku (see bottom of this e-mail for explanation).

Secondly, the reason, obviously, just about everyone knows this is because of the huge amount of coverage that a new Harry Potter generates- there will be more written about this book than any other this year but in the wake of that will be much that is about books and bookshops in general and we thought it would be a good idea to take advantage of this so the day of Friday 20th July has become a Pan Bookshop Summer Fair.
There will be events and activities throughout the day. For me the highlight is where we try to get the world record for how many history writers you can fit into a small corner of a bookshop, indeed we have so many eminent historians visiting us that a new collective noun has to be coined (do you coin a noun- or just a phrase? and there’s probably already one anyway) but this has been an extraordinarily good year for history books and I felt we should celebrate it,

Anyway, if you can, please come along to our summer fair, there really are some fantastic things to do and some excellent, eminent,informative and entertaining authors to meet.

This is the itinerary


THE PAN BOOKSHOP SUMMER BOOK FAIR
FRIDAY 20 JULY 2007

A summer extravaganza on the day of the Harry Potter Midnight Launch
A one day festival of, entertainment, education, fun, frolics and fancy dress
And the Best Harry Potter Queue in Town

9am: Shop opens

10am to 12noon: Play with the book fun for pre-school children with Klutz activities and Hodder Fairy Wings

2pm to 4pm: Hear the Book - pre school story time readers including Emma Chichester-Clarke

5pm to 6pm: Hear the Author - celebrate end of term with Diane Hofmeyer and Caroline Lawrence

7pm to 9pm: Meet the Author - eminent historians Simon Sebag-Montefiore, Andrew Roberts,
Kate Williams, Adam Zamoyski, Patrick Bishop, and Alison Weir will be discussing their
work, signing their books and celebrating 2007 as a vintage year for their literary genre

Being Buddhist - a short talk from Tharpa Books

How to Get Published - advice from Michael Cady (bring your first page and
covering letter)

Men, Being Buddhist, and Getting Published - Isabel Losada with advice on all three!

9pm to 10pm: Music - some light blues to finish the day [tbc]

10pm: Shop Closes

11.30pm: Harry Potter Queue - refreshments for all and 3 separate competitions
1 Fancy Dress
2 Harry Potter Haiku
3 Sing a Song of Weird Sisters - sing 4 - 8 lines of a song you think the Weird Sisters
might like to perform to any tune you choose, musical accompaniment at your discretion

Winners judged by the audience: bear in mind you have to parade that fancy dress, recite that haiku and sing that song before your fellow queue members
The Prizes - 1 prize for each competition - will be a deluxe copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows awarded by Hedwig - or, at least an owl that looks very much like him, although maybe a little taller.

Midnight: Pan Bookshop re-opens and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows goes on sale
(at full cover price)

Saturday 21 July: 9am to 10am Hedwig will deliver the book to those unable to make the midnight event

For further details please contact the store.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
venue: The Pan Bookshop times: 10 am to 10pm.... then 11.30PM to last customer standing!


158 Fulham Road
London SW10 9PR nearest tubes: South Kensington & Gloucester Road
buses: 14, 414, 211, 345



Contact: the manager Julian Rafot 020 7373 4997
thepanbookshop@yahoo.co.uk

hope for us all

all day yesterday I'd meant to write something sensitive and literary- interesting yet humorous but each time I got to the keyboard all I could think of was how amazing the Stooges were at Glastonbury Saturday night.
Over the years I've seen hours and hours of footage from the festival occaisionally it's been exciting, often it's interesting but probably more of it has been disappointing.
But the Stooges and forget their age for a minute, were magnificent-- the best performance I've ever seen from Glastonbury on the telly, until they ran out of steam a bit towards the end, they were absolutely riveting. Forget the stage invasion where Iggy instigated more chaos than has probably been seen at the last 4 or 5 festivals put together. The sound was amazing- the most exciting thing I've seen on telly this year.
And they're in their bloody sixties- I'm 45 with a 3.5year old and a 9 month old when they are 18 and 15 I still want to be able to go to gigs with them- It never occurred to me that I stiil might make it to the mosh pit! I've gotta go- press-ups and a bullworker await.

p.s gossip were pretty awesome too.

the customer is always....

blimey, reading that last post how pooterish do I sound? Although in this case it was not entirely my fault- I was writing it at about 9.55pm and intending to put a joke in about the fact that we had just started considering charging for windows. (This is true- I've got someone in at the moment whose experience is in larger and more formal stores to cast a fresh eye over the place- I don't think we will but who knows??- probably a bad time to start now!))
I failed in my whole set joke up, tell joke scheme as I got quite a long call from a customer and it just so happens that the phone call reflected a little on other work we are doing at the shop at the moment- namely a staff questionnaire/suggestion box come survey about how we could improve thing a bit. One of the themes is customer service and on one of the sheets in the staffroom (god how frightening does this sound- the stairwell to our staffroom looks like an asylum) I've mentioned that 2 of our regular customers have found us to be a bit grumpy sometimes of late. It's actually an observation I, sort of, agree with.
But only 'sort of'' and only sometimes; in fact- very rarely.
Back to the phone call and I hope this customer doesn't mind me mentioning this-she was very nice and, I think, so was I. She asked for a book that we had in stock, then asked if it was the paperback- I said I didn't think so, she said Amazon have it. I said I'd look it up and no, sadly, we didn't have it- now, our system does do one really neat trick-from the stock card at the touch of one button we can find if any wholesalers have a title in stock, they didn't. I was now a little surprised and said I'd check Books-in-print to she if the title was available- again to be told that Amazon have it, I asked if she was sure there was an actual on hand figure, again to be told that Amazon had it listed- now trying to learn from my girlfriend that when someone does not really understand what I say I shouldn't just repeat it - I explained that Amazon have a number of titles on their screens which are not yet published , as indeed, do we. I was then told that the customer had not rung me up 'to be given a lecture on how to use Amazon', to be followed by- about a second later- oh, they haven't got it, it's not published yet. Now, I didn't bat an eye over this and took a reservation for the hardback and placed an order for different book too so was happy with the whole transaction.
But- although I am quite capable of being hectoring, lecturing short tempered and rude, I was pretty sure I had been none of these things this time and my colleague- one of the most mild mannered people I have ever met and who has put up with me when I have been hectoring, lecturing etc etc also assured me I hadn't been. I'm pretty sure that if you tell a cabbie they've gone the wrong way, a chef that they've overcooked the pastry or, heavens forbid, tell a publisher that their jackets are lousy (actually they do often listen) you'll get a reaction but on this side of the till we have to grin and bear it. It doesn't normally bother me, I love working at a till in a bookshop and occasionally people don't appreciate you, what's the big- but sometimes you do feel that you're getting judged just a little unfairly.

all publicity etc etc

I've just had my first (I say first, that may be a bit of an assumption) customer in who has sworn never to enter Waterstone's again, she feels completely betrayed by the whole windowgate / christmas catalogue expose. It wasn't so much the fact that positioning was being paid for- she understands that retailers are here to make money but really that so much effort was put into it to make these look like genuine choices.
While it is, obviously, not true that there is no such thing as bad publicity it is a pretty safe bet that media exposure will generally do you nothing but good but some real damage seems to have been done here. Mind you, we don't know how many people woke up, heard the news, realised that what they had been missing these past few days was a good book and found themselves in the chain whose name had been planted into their heads that morning

good to be back

hi,
as the more sharp sighted of you will have noticed, nothing much has been posted on this site for a while, the principle reason being that I normally do this at home (due to pressure of work. ridicule of colleagues etc.)- we're currently upgrading our computer at home, going all wireless and broadband, as you will no doubt guess that means our system completely conked out for a bit, well, quite a bit actually. By the time I came to accept the relatively simple fact that I'd better do this at work I had a/. got used to not doing it- very easy and b/. forgotten Sabers's easy to remember code words- even easier. By the time I'd gotten round to asking Saber (much lamented ex member of staff now residing in Bath) I think he'd forgotten them too. Oh well, we're back on track now.

The funny thing is, over the last month, while cycling in to work, I've probably had more blog ideas than while we were regularly posting but I suppose that this is as predictable as upgraded computers being worse than they were pre improvement

Anyway, back to the title of the blog, I'm not referring to the blog itself or, indeed to top 70's pop tune by a dodgy pop star. It actually refers to something I'd hoped to see but didn't think I would- a seventh Tales of the City novel, 'Michael Toliver Lives' and the job I'm looking forward to most today is to put it in the window.

I loved these chronicles of San Francisco life, they are as much a part of my 'eighties and early 'nineties as anything i can think of. And when the TV series came out the pubs of Manchester must have taken a fierce dip in profits as they were denuded of booksellers. Mind you, they probably made most of it back again as we all went in the next night to talk about what we'd seen. Having recently watched them again it is with some sadness that I have to report that I do not think they have aged well but the same cannot be said for the books.
Their magazine origins ensure a tight plot with plenty of cliffhangers and they are so much of their time that I don't think they will ever date. Indeed, aging well is, I now think, the prime theme of the sequence. The books are often dismissed as just pieces of fluff- well, apart from what is so bad about that, top class fluff is probably one of the hardest things to write- this also ignores the later books as the younger characters pass into their thirties and forties and, essentially, grow-up and many of them grow old or ill and not just how you deal with aging but how you deal with mortality becomes a prime concern

Maupin has said that this new novel is 'not a continuation of Tales of the City' but it does include just about every character you would expect. The focus is, obviously, on Mouse, or Michael Tolliver as, just about, everyone now knows him. How much of that focus is now on Maupin himself is another question. Unlike many authors who do their semi-autobiographical novel at the beginning of their careers Maupin's later novels seem to be increasingly about him, and here we seem to see one of his most famous characters complete a process begun over 18 years ago and completely morph into his creator. It would be interesting to know how much of Michael Tolliver has seeped into Maupin.

Not a lot happens in the new book, but enough to make the two people I lent the proof to cry, and it is a sad, elegiac book but, like the others, hopeful in the end. I, like the others, loved it, recommend it and have now written too much about it.

cheers
julian

william, it was really nothing

well, Sunday came and went and with it our first proper story time and it was certainly a learning experience. There weren't a lot of people- well, to be honest, one child and his dad and while we're being honest I should probably point out that they were here by accident!
Ho hum, but William (and his dad) certainly tried to be a good audience- he listened, he said he'd join in but one page into the first story a more basic instinct took over. 'Room on a broom' began ok but William didn't care for the cat, the plait or the hat- once he saw the cape his Superman fetish became unstoppable- I had lost my audience. I suppose a top-notch storyteller could have recovered from this and if the story had been a basic rhyme scheme maybe I could have managed but Julia Donaldson's rhythms are flawless and, I'm afraid, beyond my ad libbing skills. Anyway, once the conversation turned to Superman and all the tiresome stuff about witches and wolves was forgotten William proved to be a delightful conversationalist and I had a great half hour with him (and his dad) although I think he may have been a bit nervous about me!

The conclusions I've drawn from this is that Sunday afternoon is probably not the best time to be doing a story time. If one or both parents work then maybe standing in a shop listening to someone struggle through a story they've already read to their kids 27 times might not be everyones idea of quality time. Whereas, if you are looking after a child by yourself all day five days a week even with the best will in the world another option is always a good thing. I still like the idea of Sunday readings- the family go out for a nice lunch together and then come to their local bookstore- but I think we'll pick a weekday too- probably Monday or Tuesday.
If anyone has any ideas or if any schools wish to come along please let me know and we'll try and accommodate everyone

julian

story time

well last Sunday I had a practice session for what I hope will be a regular event- the Sunday afternoon story-time at the Pan Bookshop. I am still hoping that we can do something with oneword radio and Paul Blezzard but I think that even if that happens that would be for older children- Sunday is for picture flats.
I didn't promote last Sunday very heavily as for the practice run I did not want too many people there- well that worked! Anyway between myself and Jane, who works here Sundays and was an excellent stand-in child, we concluded that 3 stories was about right for an easy half-hour session with time for lots of joining in. Also that I should probably go a little slower, this may be tricky as you can take the boy out of Essex (and even send him to Manchester for 18 years) but you can't ever really take the Essex out of the boy- we like to mangle our vowels and we like to do it at speed! Bear with us though as there'll, hopefully, be a second reader in May, and she can act!
We'll try and do one old favourite, one not so well known and one that's just come out and we'll probably knock a pound off any that are bought on the Sunday. We'll also provide some orange juice (sugar free, of course!)
I hope people can make it- fixing a time is quite tricky and I am open to any other suggestions,
3'0 clock in the afternoon would suit my family the way my two kids work but I realise that may not apply to everyone.
Obviously the idea is to get people into the shop and buy books but it'll only work if the whole thing is fun- everyone that comes to our Harry Potter midnight openings seems to enjoy themselves and that is the atmosphere I'm hoping to get here.

see you Sunday
julian

reviews

As a history reader and, especially, as a buyer I thought that the most annoying reviews were those where the reviewer shows little interest in the book they are, allegedly, discussing but chooses, rather, to use the occasion of a review to demonstrate their own- presumably- remarkable knowledge of the subject. I have seen this time and again from books about the Greeks to tomes pontificating on the end of the last century. Oddly enough it seems that medievalists are the most prone to this irritating habit- but that may be because I read more of their reviews.
I generally assume it is because so many historians live in such small communities that when the shaft of light created by a request from a Books Editor to write for a paper that sells to non specialists comes shining in they rise from their desks blinking and cannot believe their fortune that they now have a platform and cannot resist the urge to shout to the world everything that they know about a subject that they have devoted their entire lives to. On the other hand, I know that historians are very busy people and maybe this is a good way of covering up the fact that they have only read the first and last chapters, looked at the contents list and laughed at the photographs. Either way I can't really blame them- except it does not help me to decide how many of the reviewed book I should stock or give me a clever thing to say about it to potential customers without me having to go to the bother of reading said book.

Anyway, I'm wrong- I'd forgotten about the really, really irritating fiction review. Looking at one for a book I was going to read I came across this- I will massively paraphrase to protect the guilty and so as not to spoil it for others...'A lives alone but finds that B has done a terrible thing. A once had an affair with B but had been responsible for a tragedy in her life'....
the next line of the review is 'The shocking revelation of this secret gradually emerges.' !!!!!
well it bloody doesn't now, does it?
I'll still read the book but how annoying is that? And just to show that this isn't a rhetorical question I'll give it a 9 out of 10.

julian

Looking at this weeks Sunday Times hardback fiction bestsellers chart it is no surprise to find that Ian McEwan has a new book out, 'Chesil Beach' and it goes straight into the top 10. I am slightly surprised, however, to find that we, The Pan Bookshop with your help, have- according to Nielsen Bookscan- sold over 2.5% of the total sales. How cool is that.
This euphoria was somewhat diminished when I realised that the book isn't actually published yet and we may not be on a level playing field with some other shops, i.e they may not have received any stock yet. But even so- 2.5% of the national sales.

I took a half-day yesterday, sadly it wasn't required and I ended up leaving an hour late at 6.00pm. the occasion was that Robert Topping was taking me out to lunch, and anyone who knows him will tell you that it is a wise man who takes a half-day after a lunch with Robert.
Anyway, to no great surprise, I was stood up. I didn't mind as Robert is busy setting up his much anticipated new store in Bath. It's quite fun to be involved in all this, if only very tangentially- losing a member of staff to the new shop, losing my hoped for replacement for said member of staff to said bookshop and going to lunch with the most talked about bookseller of the moment- even at this distance I feel some of the excitement and a small tinge of envy.

except that today I got to cycle in through the parks in the sunshine- stopping at the lake and looking at the sedge (apparently) of herons opposite the Barbara Hepworth at Battersea Park (this is my current favourite view in London, they're nesting and I will never tire of looking at herons standing up on the top of tall trees). I arrive at work where 150 signed copies of 'On Chesil Beach' need to be put in the window after Ian McEwans visit yesterday- 'speed date' two reps who, for quite acceptable reasons, needed to be out of here asap- order the copies of 'Rites of Peace: the Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna' (probably the history book I am most looking forward to this year) for when we sell it at the launch party- get the 'kit bags' ready for selling Marina Lewycka's new novel 'Two Caravans' tomorrow night- get given a proof of Armistead Maupin's 'Michael Tolliver Lives' which I'm extremely happy about and just as I come in from lunch I even get to tell a famous TV critic that I thought he had been a bit hard on Shaun the Sheep. Phew, and I've still got 3 hours of my shift left.

Excitement, they don't know the meaning of the word.

julian

re last post

several people have asked how was Saber's leaving do and I know others are curious- well Stuart managed to be 2 hours late for work and although I arrived for 9.30 start (just) by lunch time I was reduced to my no. 1 fallback hangover cure i.e 2 solpadine plus hair of the dog- I guess it was an ok night. (Hanway street was certainly involved)

I did the CD but have forgotten the running order so Saber, if you're reading this could you post the track list.
Also, if we're lucky, Saber might show us the real 'last post' which I know runs to about 4,000 words but haven't seen- so if we all wish very hard......

The Last Post

This is my last blog post. I have realy enjoyed working at the Pan Bookshop. This is possibly the only time that I've left a place of work and been quite sad to do so. I'll miss the customers, my colleagues - who, like almost everybody else in the book industry, are really nice - and a whole bunch of other things. How do you quantify what's really special about one bookshop and not another?

This blog was much much longer ( I wrote it last night more than a little tipsy) but the gist is I will really miss the shop. I've had a happy four years here. I'm off to Bath in a few days. If you're ever down, do look me up.

Bye.

saber

Things I Will Miss part 2

I'm going to miss one of the biggest talks we've ever sold books at this Wednesday - the day after I finish work.
Jeffery Archer & Frank Moloney will be talking about their new book The Gospel According to Judas, a fictional account of the story of Jesus as retold by Judas' son Benjamin. While I suspect that much, if not most of the publicity has focused on Jeffrey Archer's part in this, it's really worth bearing in mind that this is a joint collobaration between him and Frank Moloney - one of the world's leading Biblical scholars. I suppose (the book is embargoed until the publication date of 20th March) this book is that rare combination of biblical scholarship mixed with storytelling.
If anyone is interested in going to this, and seeing the Pan Bookshop selling books at Westminster Cathedral this Wednesday, please contact louisec@colmangetty.co.uk

saber

films

the new very small and imperfectly formed Pan Bookshop film section finally took form today.
It really is just a few DVD's that I like and hope will sell but will nudge customers into realizing that we can order most films for them for collection next day.

Two main reasons for finally getting around to it are firstly the arrival of 'An Inconvenient truth' at a decent price at our suppliers- we've done well with the book and it seems an obvious idea to sell the film too.
The second reason is maybe more important- the arrival of 'Shoah' on DVD. It has come out more than once in discussions with customers that I don't generally approve of most of the holocaust industry but I do think that everybody should read 'If this is a Man' by Primo Levi and if you have the stomach and curiosity for more you should watch Shoah. Nine and a half hours of testimony hewn from eyewitnesses by Claude Lanzman. Everyman is here as these are the stories of the victims, the perpetrators and the bystanders. Everyone of us could have been any one of them- these are not special people, they could have come from anywhere and their stories are a part of who and what we are.
I can't really convey the power of this film but I used to collect folk stories: after seeing Shoah I stopped, there just didn't seem to be anything more to say

julian

what are things coming to..

the other day someone asked me for the poetry of A.A. Milne. I was already helping someone but all I was doing was looking for the definition of a supposed Scottish word recollected from memory: that fact that none of the large Chambers, the shorter Oxford or the enormous google had heard of the word had not diminished my customers enthusiasm one jot (you get a lot of days like this and it does add to the fun) meant that another customer was like a lifeline.
I take new customer to children's, her eyebrows raise- I show her 'and now we are six' they positively arch. she has just seen a film- in it was a poem but an adult poem, old customer now wants to try a different spelling of Scottish word- I have to go back, calling saber over to help with the film/poem enquiry I once again open the Chambers dictionary.

[I'm temporarily taking over the story here - saber]
About 5 minutes later, I work out that it's a poem by e.e. cummings called- "i carry your heart with me(i carry it in" -by googling various permutations. I'm feeling really quite pleased with myself. We have several editions of e.e. cumming's poetry. I show them to the customer. My favourite edition is the Complete Poems, 1904-1962 which is over a thousand pages. The customer likes the look of it as well and thinks that it would be a great Valentine's present. I'm thinking fantastic, we've sold a £35 poetry book to someone who will really appreciate it. I look up the poem in the index, go to page 766.
Guess what.
It's not there.
Some numpty has ripped out that page.
I'm fuming.
Really.
Really angry.
It doesn't take that much effort to google anything nowadays and to print it out. It's just plain vandalism.
Anyway, the customer bought a paperback edition of cummings' poetry.
[back to Julian]

so there you go- they could have asked us, we probably would have printed one poem from google for them- but no.
Anyway on the off chance anyone reading this feels similarly inclined and just because it provides a good excuse to print some e.e. cummings here's the poem

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

(re copyright- I guess google could not complain and I hope Faber realise that this whole blog is just a thinly veiled advert to demonstrate that we are the type of bookshop that stocks £35 hardback poetry books)

Things I Will Miss part 1

How do people find out about books? How do booksellers find out about what's coming out? I'm not talking about the very useful reps who show us highlights (tailored to us) of new books coming out, or various publisher catalogues or even the periodic Bookseller highlights.

Blogs can be useful. I occassionally dip into Scott Pack's blog and have been spurred on to order The Key to Chintak a self-published children's novel which was in the Waterstone's top 10. Follow the original link to find out how the book got to be published (I can never tell stories properly and mangling one that's already told quite well is pointless). And one of my favourite blogs is Snowbooks' not just because it is well-written and very good-humoured, but also because you do get to see a side of publishing that you wouldn't do therwise. Occasionally James and Emma do a little mastercourse on an aspect of publishing. They're really useful. Anyway, she's just blogged about how proofs get made. After reading it, I called up and asked for one. And after reading the proof, you'll probably hear me endlessly extolling the (much-)neglected art of zombie fiction.

But I suppose my favourite way to find out about a book is when a customer comes up to the till and pays for a book I've never seen before or just given a cursory glance to. Today someone bought Michelle Knudsen's The Library Lion. And I went "that looks nice". And she started telling me about it. And then someone else went and bought another copy. I then went and had a look.

I do use hyperbole a lot. Every book I recommend is nice, fantastic etc. I know that devalues my use the absolutes. But The Library Lion is that good.

I know I'll have similar experiences in Bath, but I do like the tastes of our (I can't say that for too much longer) customers here in Chelsea. I'll miss it.

saber

let me count the days

Last night Karen and I went to Tate Britain for the launch of Tracy Chevalier's new novel Burning Bright. It was fantastic - a great venue, gorgeous paintings, really nice people ... If it had only been just this, it woud have been a pretty good launch. What really made it stand out was Michael Horovitz's brilliant performance of Blake's Tyger, Tyger. If I can find a link to it, I will add it to this post.

saber

milkman of human kindness

as you know we've had a couple of break-ins over the last few months, during the last one my wallet went as well. (this is possibly the only time I've left it at work in nearly two decades).
My view of humanity last week was one of a jaded, cynical middle aged man who thought the world was out to get him.
At the end of the week I remembered I'd won a bid on e-bay for a copy of 'The Wild' - a Disney animation that, possibly uniquely, my son thinks is the best film in the world. I hastily apologize for not paying and explain that although my joint card (Royal bank of Scotland take a bow 24hr service) has been replaced, after 4 days my own card (Barclay's take a step backward) hadn't arrived but I'd rather not set up a new paypal account with the joint card. I did say that I was sorry for the delay and so was my son as he was looking forward to seeing the film again.

the reply from the seller was that this was no problem, if I sent them my address they would send the film straight away and I could settle up whenever the card arrived. Wow!

So let's big it up for e-bay seller 'lazybones' as this week I see the world as one full of happy people who all want to help eachother and that anything is possible.

julian

recap

ok,
Saber and I have been doing this post for about two weeks now- I've yet to pursuade anyone else to join in but I'm sure they will- and from the traffic thingy we get from Yahoo more people are visiting the blog everyday. hurrah. (but still not very many- hence the lower case and no exclaimation mark my rather simple prose style would normally dictate.)
Anyway, I'd thought I'd just quickly recap as some of the most important items we did in terms of communication were on the first blog which has now fallen over the parapet.

Firstly, We are interested if anyone would like to be our owl for Harry Potter night. I have to admit that thus far we've had no takers although I thought it would be so popular in my minds eye I'd pictured a charity auction for the privlidge. Oh well- if anyone hankers after being Hedwig for a day let us know.

Secondly; we were asking about chidrens reading groups in the shop, especially a possible link with a radio station, well, we've had a few schools and a couple of authors get back to us on that so I'll keep you posted and hopefully something will be running very soon.

Also I've wondered aloud what books our politicians could usefully read, my suggestions so far being Suite Francaise for Tony Blair (great book on the civilian cost of war) and The Great Game for anyone in our defence dept.

And finally, the great Saber's leaving CD appeal was launched- suggestions required for his book related (with one or two exceptions)- compilation. So far the running order is:

New career in a New town- David Bowie (speaks for itself)
The Book Song- Fairport Convention (ditto)
Wuthering heights- Kate Bush
White rabbit- Jefferson Aeroplane
Steppenwolf- Hawkwind
Neon Bible - Arcade Fire (actually I haven't heard this yet as my copy of the album hasn't turned up! althogh sabers' did!!)
Charlote Sometimes- The Cure
Maybe This Time - From Cabaret
Catweazle- Boo Radleys (I'd never heard of , let alone heard, this but the concepts good)
Break on Through - The Doors
Suicide Underground - Air (more or less the entire plot of The Virgin Suicides in one song- sort of)
It's the end of the world as we know it (but I feel fine)- REM

julian