The Bedside Crow

Classy.

Amaz*n extend the 12 days of Christmas. I mean, I know we're all atheists now, but is this final proof that Jeff Bezos thinks he's God?
 

So Jon, what did you do on your morning off?

Well, at 8.25 I rolled out my yoga mat in the living room.

And at 8.25 and 10 seconds, somebody ordered a big drill.

I think I owe John Cale a pint.

It was mid-morning on Monday and Paris 1919 was playing on the stereo when the only person in the shop, a man with too many rings on his fingers, who, in an earlier time, might have been on nodding acquaintance with Aleister Crowley, came up to the counter and said, I just want to say, I have never, ever heard John Cale being played in the wild, in an open space before. This is fantastic!

He returned to browsing and then, an hour later - when in truth, the chorus I'm having tea with Graham Greene and the refrain welcome back to Chipping Sodbury had been heard maybe one time too many - he returned to the till with a big pile of books.

I totaled them up for him. That will be eighty-four pounds and twenty-six pence, I said.

Christ, he said, is it?

There was no one looking, I'll tell you what, I said, call it eighty and I'll throw in an extra Ballard.

Stan the window cleaner comes in with his bill.

The whole book market's gone crash ain't it, Jonathan?

Something like that Stan, I say.

I was just hearing about that big place up west, where you could get a coffee and a cake and all that.

I hand him a twenty-pound note.

But you're the exception to the rule then, Jonathan, are you?

Something like that Stan, I say.

Event: Saturday 5th December 5pm. Bob Marley the Untold Story. Chris Salewicz.

Lively up Yourself!

Join us at 5pm on December 5th, for an early Christmas drink, some music and a reading by author Chris Salewicz from his book Bob Marley the Untold Story.

Chicken Biriyani South Indian Style.

From the recipe here.

Pickles were delicious, too.
 
 

Julie Myerson can just fuck off, then.

I buy all books on Amaz*n now because of the huge price difference. But I still use bookshops as places to go to first - to remind me of what's out there and to look at and touch the books.

Quoted in a sidebar to this article in today's Observer.

[And I say that as someone who has both personally sold her plenty of books in the past, and also, sold plenty of her books in the past - in the past,  being the significant part of that sentence.]

So that's the week's profits right there, then.

Bugger. Left the fan heater on overnight. Lovely and toasty warm, but it must have cost a couple of quid.
 

Well, it's not everyday that somebody calls from Hungary to order a copy of Robert Walser's The Tanners (with the introduction by W. G. Sebald).

And we had it in stock.

A friend in publishing writes:

A friend in publishing writes: Borders RIP - that's our net profit for this yr wiped out then -& thus fck all chance of any xmas bonus...again.