With my medication I will be fine.

Yesterday was a bastard pig of a day. I would rather not have another one of those for the next twenty years or so. Thanks, but no thanks, St Anthony. We took stuff all money and nine boxes arrived battered and bruised at a quarter to five, literally thrown into the shop by the locum delivery driver - sorry mate, while his ring tone played the sort of music of which Mr Cameron does not approve. And did any of the crumpled boxes contain the copy of The Big Sleep that has been promised in every delivery for the last ten days or so and that we need to fulfil a web order? Did they fuck.

No matter and in honour of the fact that I am currently reading this we will accentuate the positive.

Firstly; hurrah! Mr Martin Millar's book, The Good Fairies of New York, has just been republished in America by The Soft Skull Press and it has a new introduction by Mr Neil Gaiman who says...nor do I understand why Martin Millar isn't as celebrated as Kurt Vonnegut, as rich as Terry Pratchett, as famous as Douglas Adams... He says go and read it right now. And so you should.

Tap tap tap.

And then there is Mr Edward Champion and The Bat Segundo an interweb sideshow of great distinction and absolutely spiffing podcasts. A short while ago I recommended The Three Junes By Julia Glass to a customer who returned from her holiday offering profuse thanks and saying it was one of the best books she had ever read. Well, Mr Edward Champion has an hour long interview with Julia Glass here. And there's lots more besides, including in the latest edition an interview with Mr Lemony himself, Daniel Handler.

And then too, there is the return of that most literate of songwriters LLoyd Cole with his new CD Antidepressant - from which I get my title of the day. It really is okay to like him again, particularly as he gracefully shifts into middle age and more than a passing resemblance to a mid-period Orson Welles.

Try this from Woman in a Bar.

No longer angry and no longer young,

no longer driven to distraction,

not even by Scarlett Johansson.

A few moving parts need to be replaced;

the engine starts, but only on a Tuesday...

Almost Larkinesque, I'm sure you agree.

And then to today. The sun is shining, St Anthony appears to be working his magic, The Big Sleep finally arrived in a box, one of three, gently, almost devotionally delivered by our regular driver and all, just for the moment at least, is well with the world.

Comments

[Waterhot]

The Big Sleep, Martin Millar, Lloyd Cole and Scarlett Johansson all in one post - this really is my kind of place.

I don't think I ever stopped liking Lloyd Cole. For a couple of terms at university I wrote an anonymous gossip column in the college rag under the name Cosmopolitan, all the time secretly hoping that someone would end being "sexually enlightened by Cosmopolitan", which must be almost the ultimate in-joke, since no-one else would ever have known it had come true, if it had, which it didn't.

I may see you on Saturday, time permitting...

[panic attack]

Hey, this is a really great post, your a good writer :)