30 Nov 2009
The Pantomime Season
The whole house has been smelling like Widow Twankie's laundry this morning since 6.30am. Very Christmassy. Two on the boil and two in waiting.
27 Nov 2009
Bordering on the scary side.
I wasn't amazed by the fall of the banks - didn't need a crystal ball to see THAT coming - but I was shocked to hear that Borders is in receivership. We were in the Inverness branch Saturday on an unusual day out and there I was gazing down on browsers, drinking my coffee laced with hazelnut and thinking how much I like being able to browse 'new' bookshops occasionally when pouff! There they are, nearly gone. I hope they get a reprieve of some sort.
The good thing is, according to the Independant today, the pendulum is swinging and a variety of independent bookshops are opening. The bad news is that they are all, so far, in London and Oxford. We do have one in Elgin, so raising a flag here, but only thanks to a wealthy patron who rescued it. Hopefully more wealthy patrons will come out of the woodwork. I really wouldn't like it if the supermarkets and airports were going to be dictating literary taste!!
Can't help thinking it's Amazon's fault. No matter how much my customers bemoan the fact I'm closing they all admit to buying from Amazon when they know what it is they want. Who can blame them? (I do too.) And they buy from the four book-selling charity shops we have in the space of 150 yards of course.
Hard Times for bookshops.
There has been a rash of shop-lifting in town. Sadly one victim was a nice young woman who has a brilliant knick-knack shop, but less sadly (sorry, I know it's not PC to say so but hey...) from the charity shops who are in righteous uproar.
I was glad to close last Christmas and shall be glad to shut the door this year too when Positively My Last Appearance is over. I'm fed up with the folk who assume I'm given the books for free. I'm fed up with the ones who carp about the price of a book when it's both rare and half the price it was last week and therefore probably less than I paid for it. I had both sorts in yesterday. They make me very sour. I nearly refused to sell the 'too expensive' book but bit my tongue in time. Was mopping blood for ages after.
I've also got a heavy cold which may have something to do with the grumps.
The good thing is, according to the Independant today, the pendulum is swinging and a variety of independent bookshops are opening. The bad news is that they are all, so far, in London and Oxford. We do have one in Elgin, so raising a flag here, but only thanks to a wealthy patron who rescued it. Hopefully more wealthy patrons will come out of the woodwork. I really wouldn't like it if the supermarkets and airports were going to be dictating literary taste!!
Can't help thinking it's Amazon's fault. No matter how much my customers bemoan the fact I'm closing they all admit to buying from Amazon when they know what it is they want. Who can blame them? (I do too.) And they buy from the four book-selling charity shops we have in the space of 150 yards of course.
Hard Times for bookshops.
There has been a rash of shop-lifting in town. Sadly one victim was a nice young woman who has a brilliant knick-knack shop, but less sadly (sorry, I know it's not PC to say so but hey...) from the charity shops who are in righteous uproar.
I was glad to close last Christmas and shall be glad to shut the door this year too when Positively My Last Appearance is over. I'm fed up with the folk who assume I'm given the books for free. I'm fed up with the ones who carp about the price of a book when it's both rare and half the price it was last week and therefore probably less than I paid for it. I had both sorts in yesterday. They make me very sour. I nearly refused to sell the 'too expensive' book but bit my tongue in time. Was mopping blood for ages after.
I've also got a heavy cold which may have something to do with the grumps.
26 Nov 2009
All is drear dread dark here in the North. Cold, cloudy, gloomy. No bright shiny fabrics and no beautiful new living rooms to cheer me up. Ah well! I made discreetly globular 'Sale' signs with holly for the window and they look quite Christmassy, not at all closing-down-sad, and I'll put a baubly-sparkly tree with them this weekend. The nice woman who wants to buy my books would like me to pack them all away now until she has sold her house but quite understands that I have to try to raise some of the ready to pay for presents etc. so we will re-negiotiate when she's got some money together herself. It's nice to think that the books will all, one day, find their way onto shelves in new shop even if they aren't sold here. In the meantime I have had some good sales, noteably a very large book of erotic paintings and drawings with a huge breast fondled by a very white hand on the cover that has embarrassed almost everyone who has ever picked it up. It was sold to an embarrassed bloke who put all his other novels on top of the breast to bring it to the counter. I whipped the books off - sadistic bitch that I am!
G'son (transient synovitis again: 'he'll grow out of it') is hirpling about on crutches, not making a very good fist of resting his hip. He's either in such pain he has to have knock-out pain relief or he is fidgetting about praticing going up and down stairs fast. At least we have him home and don't need to sit in a ward trying to think of something to do or say. Sewing would come in handy at that point. Maybe I could teach him to knit.
For a whole day I didn't switch on the iMac - I think it felt neglected.
G'son (transient synovitis again: 'he'll grow out of it') is hirpling about on crutches, not making a very good fist of resting his hip. He's either in such pain he has to have knock-out pain relief or he is fidgetting about praticing going up and down stairs fast. At least we have him home and don't need to sit in a ward trying to think of something to do or say. Sewing would come in handy at that point. Maybe I could teach him to knit.
For a whole day I didn't switch on the iMac - I think it felt neglected.
23 Nov 2009
OK - some joker upstairs was listening when I crowed about everything familywise and Sandywise being so much better than this time last year. A day after his rugby match he started up with the same hip pain that put him in hospital last March. Poor child finally couldn't cope with the pain so spent Sat-Sun night on a trolley in a hospital corridor then got a drug-induced sleep from 5.30 Sunday morning until the specialist came round to say - 'Oh, yeah, well, looks like the same thing... no point in X-raying.. bed rest until Thursday..' His mum was hopping mad (being an osteopath she knows a thing or two and there are some true nasties that could be happening in the body of an eleven year old and she would like to know for sure they aren't happening in her sons' body.. and what the hell do they get paid for anyway...? ) Eventually she sprung him, against advice. He is home, will go to school, be propelled around in a wheel chair and thus spared the mind-numbing boredom of life on the Children's Ward.
At least this time it isn't all clouded over with emotional stuff... but maybe I should shut up right there...
It's tough staying atheist sometimes. I'm a superstitious athiest.
Daughter and I had nice time filling a trolley at wholesale prices at the wholesale health food store on Saturday before the worst of this kicked off. I think I might enjoy presiding part-time over her new shop.
At least this time it isn't all clouded over with emotional stuff... but maybe I should shut up right there...
It's tough staying atheist sometimes. I'm a superstitious athiest.
Daughter and I had nice time filling a trolley at wholesale prices at the wholesale health food store on Saturday before the worst of this kicked off. I think I might enjoy presiding part-time over her new shop.
19 Nov 2009
Picked the g'son up last night after an away match in Perth (two hour drive away, luckily in a luxury coach with films) When we got home there was the ritualistic counting of bruises and recounting of injuries suffered by others (the worst this time was a dislocated thumb - ouch!!) I got out the arnica, ran a bath, fed soup and sandwiches and fell into bed as exhausted as the warrior. All teams lost yesterday to a fiendishly good school but as they won their last match we weren't feeling too downcast...
My last thought as I slid into oblivion was 'Thank whoever and whatever should be thanked that this child is now a normal boy again who can take a few knocks and still come up cheerful.' Such a difference to this time last year.
18 Nov 2009
Humour.
At the end of my working day I habitually pour my glass of red and switch on the TV in the hope of finding something to relax to. This evening trawling didn’t find much so I settled for ‘The Pink Panther’ which I’ve seen before obviously but the episode that came up was the car chase with all the protagonists in fancy dress and so I watched because this Makes Me Laugh. In fact this can reduce me to tears. Before the wine kicked in I was wondering why some comedy can do this - reduce me to tears and inhibit my already dodgy breathing apparatus.
In this scene it is the addition of one character - the still-upright-and-just-about-in-charge inebriate. As he puts one foot carefully in front of the other to cross the road the inevitable arrival of the car driven by a gorilla sets him back hastily. It screeches past him to be followed, just as he is about to dismiss the first car as an hallucination and recover his equilibrium, the car containg St. George and the Dragon, followed, after an interval for him to once more regain his grip on reality, by another gorilla, and so on until I’m a heap of quivering jelly on the couch.
I had a phone call this afternoon from a dearly loved friend who now lives in California. All this introspection on humour and what makes me laugh reminded me of the many hugely enjoyable arguments - sorry, discussions - we’ve had over the years on many more grave subjects, but the ones that stick in my head are those that concerned just this subject. He is a great fan of ‘Frasier’ and in the days when I would call black white after a glass of whatever house wine was on offer in the local hostelry, (and so would he usually after a glass of Guinness, with or without the natty clover leaf that some bar tenders can manage) we disagreed on the subject of British v. American humour. I had to stick up for my opinion so that made Frasier Not Funny, but this seems like a good moment to admit that maybe I do find the programme (heaven knows there have been enough repeats for me to have had a chance to change my opinion) erm.... well, er - worth a laugh or two.
It doesn’t take much to make me laugh but it takes a very special sort of sitcom or comedian or film to make me weep with laughter. On Sunday I was treated to a good hysterical weep revisiting ‘The Adventures of Picasso’ a Swedish film issued in 1978 and made by Tage Danielsson loosely based on the life of Picasso and opening with the quote from the man himself "Art is a lie that leads us closer to the truth." N & I saw it when it first came out and certain scenes have stayed with me over the decades, notably Wilfred Brambell (Steptoe) as Alica B. Toklass and Bernard Cribbens as Gertrude Stein. Alice forgets her position as Gertrude’s humble sidekick and is sharply reminded by the attention-seeking Grande Dame's reproving: 'Alice! Be Talk-less!" Later Alice dresses as a fairy and tries to seduce another artist - imagine Steptoe dressed as a fairy and I challenge you not to laugh. There are also the scenes in which the Bolshoi Ballet, scenery and costumes created by Picasso, premieres in London before the King and Queen, but, fed cheaply at supper on cauliflower, the dancers find themselves able to ascend higher than usual in their grande jette, battements and split leaps, driven upward by the violent explosions of gaseous farts, and the performance isn’t so well received as they would have hoped..
There are some clever scenes too, for instance the one in which Pablo is about to be electrocuted in an imaginary era of American prohibition of Art. He draws himself a window in the execution chamber and escapes.
My present to myself for myself this Christmas (if I earn enough) is to be the complete ‘Allo ‘Allo.’ That always manages to reduces me to tears.
In this scene it is the addition of one character - the still-upright-and-just-about-in-charge inebriate. As he puts one foot carefully in front of the other to cross the road the inevitable arrival of the car driven by a gorilla sets him back hastily. It screeches past him to be followed, just as he is about to dismiss the first car as an hallucination and recover his equilibrium, the car containg St. George and the Dragon, followed, after an interval for him to once more regain his grip on reality, by another gorilla, and so on until I’m a heap of quivering jelly on the couch.
I had a phone call this afternoon from a dearly loved friend who now lives in California. All this introspection on humour and what makes me laugh reminded me of the many hugely enjoyable arguments - sorry, discussions - we’ve had over the years on many more grave subjects, but the ones that stick in my head are those that concerned just this subject. He is a great fan of ‘Frasier’ and in the days when I would call black white after a glass of whatever house wine was on offer in the local hostelry, (and so would he usually after a glass of Guinness, with or without the natty clover leaf that some bar tenders can manage) we disagreed on the subject of British v. American humour. I had to stick up for my opinion so that made Frasier Not Funny, but this seems like a good moment to admit that maybe I do find the programme (heaven knows there have been enough repeats for me to have had a chance to change my opinion) erm.... well, er - worth a laugh or two.
It doesn’t take much to make me laugh but it takes a very special sort of sitcom or comedian or film to make me weep with laughter. On Sunday I was treated to a good hysterical weep revisiting ‘The Adventures of Picasso’ a Swedish film issued in 1978 and made by Tage Danielsson loosely based on the life of Picasso and opening with the quote from the man himself "Art is a lie that leads us closer to the truth." N & I saw it when it first came out and certain scenes have stayed with me over the decades, notably Wilfred Brambell (Steptoe) as Alica B. Toklass and Bernard Cribbens as Gertrude Stein. Alice forgets her position as Gertrude’s humble sidekick and is sharply reminded by the attention-seeking Grande Dame's reproving: 'Alice! Be Talk-less!" Later Alice dresses as a fairy and tries to seduce another artist - imagine Steptoe dressed as a fairy and I challenge you not to laugh. There are also the scenes in which the Bolshoi Ballet, scenery and costumes created by Picasso, premieres in London before the King and Queen, but, fed cheaply at supper on cauliflower, the dancers find themselves able to ascend higher than usual in their grande jette, battements and split leaps, driven upward by the violent explosions of gaseous farts, and the performance isn’t so well received as they would have hoped..
There are some clever scenes too, for instance the one in which Pablo is about to be electrocuted in an imaginary era of American prohibition of Art. He draws himself a window in the execution chamber and escapes.
My present to myself for myself this Christmas (if I earn enough) is to be the complete ‘Allo ‘Allo.’ That always manages to reduces me to tears.
17 Nov 2009
My Struggle
I rue the day I ever bought that damn book by the comic little fellow with the moustache and stiff arm. I sold it once on ebay in n auction in October but the buyer didn't pay and didn't even respond to polite emails asking what was going wrong. I went through the proceedure to cancel the sale and tried to auction it again, got a buyer but now the wretched Paypal machine won't work for me. Funds were sent, none arrived. The system has worked fine every other time I have ever used it. I tell you - that book is jinxed!!
14 Nov 2009
12 Nov 2009
Maximonster
This tiny creature is hardly as big as Sandy's rabbit and it's fully grown. I'm dogsitting whilst the owners are away and was looking forward to it coming, but apart from being really sorry for it being so size-challenged I don't feel I've got a dog at all. There's NOTHING on the end of the lead....
Iain's huge hairy alsation who we were afraid would destroy it in one bite, mistaking it for a rabbit, doesn't seem to register the little thing at all - maybe it gets in under the radar.
9 Nov 2009
8 Nov 2009
4 Nov 2009
Happy Birthday Chillsider!!
Mount Kailash. The sacred mountain of Tibet.
Not sure why but I thought of it when I thought of you...It's yours for the day!
3 Nov 2009
Hallowe'en passed without much celebration here. I just put spooky books in the window i.e. tarot cards, werewolf stories, Frazer's Golden Bough, Edgar Allan Poe, Buffy novels and so on. They did very well and I shifted books that have been hanging around a while, so that was all good. It brought me in some interesting conversations whatismore. A fairly regular customer, one I like, started talking about folklore and finished by telling me about her own totally fascinating experience of living in a haunted house in Ireland.
It's very much the place I am in at the moment as I retell the tale of the witch Isabel Goudie and chase around the other local books on the shelves and on the internet looking for North of Scotland folklore. It's rather like an archaeological dig, the further down I get the more complex things become and the more interesting only I'm afraid I'll disappear forever in some archive or the other and never be seen again.
At least it's keeping me from panicking about the future moves, which is a good thing. Poor Chloë decided to go down the honest route and notify the Moray Council of her proposed change of usage. Bad idea. They will charge her for the new signage - she could hardly continue to call it 'The Forres Bookshop' after all - and were going to charge for the change of colour so she has decided to keep the colours as they are! There are other things they'll charge for which I have forgotten because they're so stupidly insignificant but all in all it will cost at least £300 just to clear the red tape, and this is the council that claims to be helping small businesses!! Bah!
I keep thinking I'll write A Letter to the local papers, signed Disgusted of Forres, but I've been down that route in the past and it only leads to tugging in the gut where no doubt ulcers are thinking of forming. Best just stay above it all.
It's very much the place I am in at the moment as I retell the tale of the witch Isabel Goudie and chase around the other local books on the shelves and on the internet looking for North of Scotland folklore. It's rather like an archaeological dig, the further down I get the more complex things become and the more interesting only I'm afraid I'll disappear forever in some archive or the other and never be seen again.
At least it's keeping me from panicking about the future moves, which is a good thing. Poor Chloë decided to go down the honest route and notify the Moray Council of her proposed change of usage. Bad idea. They will charge her for the new signage - she could hardly continue to call it 'The Forres Bookshop' after all - and were going to charge for the change of colour so she has decided to keep the colours as they are! There are other things they'll charge for which I have forgotten because they're so stupidly insignificant but all in all it will cost at least £300 just to clear the red tape, and this is the council that claims to be helping small businesses!! Bah!
I keep thinking I'll write A Letter to the local papers, signed Disgusted of Forres, but I've been down that route in the past and it only leads to tugging in the gut where no doubt ulcers are thinking of forming. Best just stay above it all.
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