Gong-Tastic

It's awards season again and the marvellous Tania Kindersley of Backwards In High Heels has very kindly passed on a gong to this blog. The award exists to be passed on (as they all should) so below are the rules:

1. You have to pass it on to 5 other fabulous blogs in a post.

2. You have to list 5 of your fabulous addictions in the post.

3. You must copy and paste the rules and the instructions below in the post.

Instructions: On your post of receiving this award, make sure you include the person that gave you the award and link it back to them. When you post your five winners, make sure you link them as well. To add the award to your post, simply right-click, save image, then “add image” it in your post as a picture so your winners can save it as well. To add it to your sidebar, add the “picture” widget. Also, don’t forget to let your winners know they won an award from you by emailing them or leaving a comment on their blog.

Alors – the 5 fabulous blogs.

If you have been left out, it’s only because there are so many of you whose blogs I enjoy and want to spread around.

1) The lovely Rol at Sunset Over Slawit. Rol is an astonishing fount of knowledge on music, (especially if it's Morrissey), and ways to cope with being unable to scratch your arm when it's in a cast. He also writes (novel on the way), and nobody seems able to explain how he fits a day job in.

2) The excellently red-haired Laura at The Poet Laura-eate. She is fab. The Wendy Cope of Blogger. Poetry, Oxford current affairs, and a lovely fleur-de-lis backdrop. Plus she knows how to do those Flickr slideshows.

3) The genius that is JRSM at Caustic Cover Critic, a blog whose raison d'etre is to celebrate (or, where necessary, ridicule) the art of the book jacket. An invaluable guide to the beautiful, the unimaginative, the unusual and the derivative. Just lovely, and always funny.

4) Usedbuyer2.0, at the blog of the same name. A bookseller of many years' standing, his blogs are a delight to read; in the last few alone I found references to Cavafy, Edward Lear, Auden, AND quotes, AND room for wonderful digressions on bookshop life in all its strange and peculiar splendour. Also many, many, wonderful clerihews, an artform that is unjustly neglected at the moment.

5) Last but not least, Jonathan at Bookseller Crow. What more can I say than - there is no intentional bias towards the booksellerish in my choices, but Jonathan always makes me laugh.

My Five Fabulous addictions:
It's not like I'm particularly secretive about my addictions, so you probably know all this already, but here are a few of the more socially acceptable ones (the Gitanes and their ilk will be glossed over).

1) Obviously books! Unable to leave a bookshop with fewer than three, usually more. My job and subsequent perks/discount mean I very rarely buy anywhere else, especially since I get free proof copies of many many things, and am on good enough terms with most of the publishers' reps that I can ask them for freebies; under most other circumstances (old, out of print, etc) I recommend Abebooks - worlds superior to Amazon and a bigger range - plus more of your money actually goes to the bookdealer than on Amazon.
2) Perfume. Sorry, I know I'm a bit nerdy on this point but I consider it as important as clothing - ie wearing different ones to suit your mood, the weather, the time of year etc. As a result I have rather a lot. I have nothing against people who have a "signature scent" - in fact I admire their tenacity. But I like the fact that the larger your range, the more you can make olfactory jokes with yourself (nobody else is likely to get it) - like wearing "Rain" by Marc Jacobs when it's raining, or "Rousse" by Serge Lutens because you have red hair. My absolute Mecca for this (apart from, in The Real World, Liberty's) is The Perfumed Court, who will sell you tiny tester-sized bottles of pretty much any perfume so you can try before you commit. Invaluable.
3) COFFEE. Enough said. In an ideal world espresso all the time, but sadly I'm over 25 and can't sleep if I drink it after lunchtime.
4) My/our thick quilted mattress-topper (John Lewis). I have never slept so soundly.
5) If I have an alcoholic addiction here, please note that while I would find life very drab without alcohol, I am by no means an alcoholic. Apparently considering the number of boozehounds and manic-depressives on both sides of my family, this makes me quite unusual. But I do like a nice Calvados.

me me me me me me me me meme

The lovely Red Rum ("Your money's no good here, Mr Torrance...") has tagged me. I must write ten interesting and honest things about myself. "Interesting" is subjective, "honest" less so. This will probably be the last one of these I do for a while, as you all now know me better than is entirely healthy, given that we've none of us ever met in what I like to call "the flesh" (mostly because there's so much of it).

1) I've just this second sold a book to the blonde Aussie one from Sheila's Wheels. She was thoroughly charming and if I had a car I know where I'd be getting my insurance from.

2) I have only ever once made hollandaise sauce - it was perfect. I am now so worried that it'll never turn out that well again that I have never reattempted it.

3) I once shared a flat with an inordinately cool Zimbabwean guy called Dumiso; during the course of one rainy Sunday afternoon doing the ironing and watching Zulu we discovered that we were, respectively, descended from Gonville Bromhead and King Cetshwayo. We decided never to speak of it, although whistling "Men of Harlech" became shorthand for "I'm trying to annoy you".


4) I will eat anything except tripe (I hate the consistency), brains (not sure I like the idea of eating something that has ideas) and andouillette (made of bowel, smells of bowel). In my defence, I'm not particularly squeamish otherwise - I will happily eat kidneys, tongue, sweetbreads, black pudding, snails, etc, and in my time have eaten crocodile steak, water buffalo, snake, peacock, a scorpion, and a bee (on purpose, crystallised in honey).

5) I went on an anti-Vietnam War march in 1972 or -3; I was a small child at this point (!) and my deeply peacenik Canadian babysitter took me (I grew up in Montreal). At the age of 6 I knew who Nixon and Ho Chi Minh were, what "impeach" meant, and why there were so many American men suddenly living in Canada...

6) Further to the Canada thing, I was also living there when the October Crisis happened - so am the only one of my contemporaries who has, albeit briefly, lived under martial law.

7) I would sell my soul for the ability to drink a double espresso after midday without turning into a sleepless and jittery speedfreak. I love coffee, love it, love it, and it has ceased to love me since the day I turned 30, fickle swine that it is.

8) My family motto is Nil Desperandum. Which is a toughie to live up to on a drizzly day like today. Mostly I'm an optimist though.

9) I collect nice shiny facts like a magpie collects sparkly bits of tinfoil. In fact if I lived in Philip Pullman's world my daemon would undoubtedly be a member of the corvid family - maybe a rook, because they're sociable, highly acquisitive, and according to myth they like to tell stories.

10) My idea of perfect hell is massage. If there's one thing I hate more than being covered in oil, it's having to make polite conversation with a complete stranger while naked.

I'm going to tag Naweed, because I know for a fact he's never done one of these. Go, dude, make me proud...

Spread the payments or share the love?

You think it's bad seeing Christmas decorations everywhere, try being the poor benighted shop-monkey who has to price them all. I speak from my dungeon of pain (actually the sunny, warm, south-facing back office) with a price gun in my hand (also a large latte and a scotch egg). It is only October the 11th, and I am half-buried in boxes of charideeee cards and slippery bundles of giftwrap.

Yes, there is a credit crunch on, a term that always makes me think of Kit-Kats (mmmm... Kit-Kats...), and I appreciate that people find it easier to start shopping for the festive season in October, thus spreading the financial load over two or three months. However, shouldn't we be crediting the great buying public with some intelligence? The Mighty Bookstore Chain I used to work for had a phase-by-phase military-style operation that would roll out in September. Phase 1 was called "Early Gifting", a phrase that actually makes me physically ill. CDs of Christmas music were played from the start of November, and by the time the doors shut on Christmas Eve, you were ready to commit homicide if you heard "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" again. Seasoned booksellers could be reduced to a twitching wreck by the repeated whispering of "Pa-rum-pa-pum-pum....".

Christmas happens at the same time every year, and I defy you to prove otherwise (Leap Years don't count). People are unlikely to be taken aback on December the 23rd; although some of us are surprised by our own lack of preparation, it's not as if we didn't know it was going to happen. Everybody knows money is tight, and will be planning their spending accordingly. So why insult everybody by reminding them, in late September even, that they may need to start buying presents? Share the love! Stop the madness! I recommend a ban on all mention of Christmas until the second week in December. Starting, obviously, from 5 minutes after I publish this post.

Personal Gods - a rogues' gallery of deities I quite like.

Fortuna, goddess of, unsurprisingly, fortune. Known aliases include "Lady Luck"; aspersions are cast on her fickleness (qv O Fortuna by Carl Orff, staple soundtrack to horror films and aftershave ads). Famous for not often being a lady, and maybe not having been a lady to begin with (qv Guys and Dolls). You can do what you like to please her, but you'll never know if your luck was favourable because she liked the cut of your jib, or not. Unpredictable. The only thing you can guarantee is that there are no guarantees. To paraphrase what Pascal said of God, it's best to worship her, because if she exists you're covered, and if she doesn't, you've lost nothing. Aptly enough, even worshipping her is a gamble.

Melek Taus, the Peacock Angel. Bear with me a little on this one if I tell you his main alias is Lucifer. Worshipped pretty much exclusively by the Yezidi, a tiny ethnic Kurdish minority in Iraq. They believe that God made man and told the angels to bow down to him, which they duly did, but Melek Taus refused, saying that surely the angels were the finest of God's creations and shouldn't bow down to a creature made of mud. So far, so Biblical. The Yezidi reckon, however, that at this point rather than casting him out for insubordination, God said "Well done, that was exactly the answer I was looking for, and unlike all these yes-men you alone have the pride to recognise that you are my most beautiful creation..." and other encouraging noises. God then disappeared to create other universes, leaving Melek Taus, the Devil, in charge of this one. Given the extraordinary persecution the Yezidi have suffered over the years, that sounds about right.

Legba Atibon, voodoo god (or loa) of the crossroads. He represents humility, comprehension, and the ability to see and appreciate the potential in others, which in itself facilitates communication. Definitely the god of the internet and libraries - and of any conversation or exchange of information. How could you not worship him? The kindest and most affectionately-regarded of the loa, he has relatively simple tastes for a god, and rather than demanding expensive tribute and sacrifices is happy with a cup of coffee and some tobacco. So also the god of booksellers then...

It just gets better and better

Some time ago I wrote a mildly exasperated post about the joys of the OCD spectrum - and really, I shouldn't complain, because it's handy for the crossword ("Nope, it can't be 'iridescent' because that's 10 letters"). However - more and more lately I've been wondering about whether there exists, in a parallel kinda way, a Tourette's spectrum that we're all to some extent on. We all, I presume, have those voices that scream apoplectically "SHIFT YOUR STUPID SLACK-TROUSERED TEENAGE ARSE" when stuck behind a foot-dragging gangly iPod-festooned 14-year-old cretin on the tube escalator - but mercifully silently, so that you get the satisfaction of having vented your spleen without the possibility of being headbutted by someone 9 feet tall in trainers the size of breezeblocks. Lately I've found to my HORROR that my lips are moving when I'm doing this. It's only a short step from that to being the ranty old lady we all cross the road to avoid. The sad truth is, I have always had a vision of myself, perhaps an optimistic one, as some kind of minor-Redgrave-esque trendily attired doyenne of subculture, dispensing bookish wisdom like some glamorous sybil. The gap between this and the real truth is rapidly enlarging - the hideous truth that in fact I'm some bhaji-haired old crone lurching wildly up and down the road screaming "NO, REALLY, PARK WHERE YOU LIKE, YOU FILTHY CHISWICK WHORE" at the innocent Jimmy Choo-ed mummy mafia. Out loud. Counting the letters as I do.
Then again I haven't had enough coffee yet today.

Vets and pets

"Learn to read with Lucy Fishwife and her two cats"

See Lucy Fishwife. Lucy and Mr Fishwife have two cats.
See her two cats.
Lucy's older cat has bald patches, a bad temper, an evil stare, and gags a lot.
She is called Ruby.
Lucy's younger cat likes to get attention by limping around with her paw held up.
She is called Millie.
Millie recently cost Lucy Fishwife A BIG LOT of money at the vet.
Because Lucy thought Millie had broken her paw and it turned out she was a malingering little sod who has realised that limping about gets her attention.
So that was £175, two Xrays and a course of ketamine down the drain.
Ruby recently cost Lucy Fishwife AN EVEN BIGGER LOT of money at the vet.
Because she turns out to be allergic to her own flea bites.
Mr Vet had to do a surprisingly large and extensive range of tests to find this out.
Mr Vet's computer sent Ruby a nice letter asking her to let Lucy know she now owes Mr Vet £375.
Lucy is, frankly, less than entirely chuffed to be asked for money in quite such a twee way.
Particularly in a letter signed "the Practice computer".
Lucy is going to get her fridge, hairdryer and christmas lights to go round and beat up Mr Vet's computer.
Lucy will of course pay the bill because she's law-abiding and superstitiously afraid of medical professionals.
No animals were harmed during the writing of this blog. Although Lucy has glared at them.

Catch yourself on, love.

Oh the joys of "observational humour" - not. This morning I went to get my usual bucket of coffee at a nasty chain that shall remain nameless but who does, in their defence, make really good basic filter coffee. FIRST OFF there was a dog and a garish pink scooter, both unashamedly parked directly across the door. Not, I grant you, the dog's fault, so I climbed over both and went in. THEN there were four women debating at some length whether to have a venti penti cappufrappuccino each, or one between two, or a smaller size - in that kind of way where they block your access to the till without actually making use of it themselves. THEN as I left, armed with my very small filter coffee (I am frankly incapable of saying "venti" since it's just made-up coffee esperanto, and "grande" doesn't seem to mean large, it means small, apparently), one of the aforementioned women raced out, having spotted the traffic warden bearing down on her Porsche Cayenne, and screamed operatically at the top of her voice "OH PLEASE GOD NO DON'T!!! PLEEEEASE!!!!!", in the tragic, quavering, tones of Desdemona pleading for her life. The single most histrionic display I've been an unwilling witness to, and the fact that she was parked on a double yellow line with her hazards flashing added to the incongruity of the whole thing.
But why, after all, comment, when this kind of thing goes on all the time everywhere? There are quite often mornings when I don't want to tap someone on the shoulder and say "Is this your sense of proportion, you left it behind in the coffee shop" although it depends whether they've got between me and my coffee.

Water

Just read a tiny piece in the paper which suggested that drinking 2 litres of water a day may actually not be necessary, contrary to the received wisdom about hydrating etc etc. Apparently NOT ONLY do we get all the hydration we need through our usual diet BUT ALSO tea, coffee, booze etc count as liquid (NO, REALLY???) for the purposes of said hydration. Apparently it is not necessary to carry a 5-litre bottle of Volvic around in your Orla Kiely bag (that's for anyone reading this in Chiswick). All of which is fair enough but fails to take into account the fact that my diet mostly consists of crisps and sausage rolls and anything else that turns the paper bag transparent with grease - which does NOT count as a liquid although I firmly believe it counts as at least two of your fruit and veg. AAAAAAAnyway. Imagine, consequently, my delight. There I was thinking my 4 Starbucks and (on a good day) 3 Martinis was the road to Hell - when all the time I've been following the path of True Righteousness. My premature wrinkles and sluggish kidney action are evidently hereditary rather than self-inflicted.

Behold BOTH my domains.

Probably the first thing anybody does these days when they have a GREAT NEW IDEA is to rush out (or in) and buy the appropriate domain name. Done it twice in the last 6 months myself. When you think about it it's not really very different from congratulating yourself on the fantastic storage space you have in your flat - and having nothing to put in it. So as per my post ages ago about the website - well, it's still a twinkly domain name that Alan Bennett hasn't so far taken exception to, although apparently his publishers are mildly troubled and think people googling his latest book will get us by accident. Pause here for blurt (or "spit-take" for anyone else who's a fan of Studio 60). The likelihood of a tiny bespoke book website getting enough hits to come further up a search engine than The Latest Work By One Of Britain's Best-loved Authors is similar to the likelihood of me being America's Next Top Model (likelihood lessened by the fact that I don't live in America, nor am I in any sense American) (modelling credentials equally thin).
The other website was part of a flurry of craft-based activity between me and two friends. I won't go any further, not because it's some big secret or anything, just because the domain name contained the word "muff" (yes, we know) and we were laughing too hard when we bought it to think about actually DOING anything with it.
AAAAAnyway. At work today (Sat) and ploughing through a couple of crates of returns to process. Don't worry, that's all the jargon you're going to get. In real terms, this means I'm out the back with a bucket of coffee while someone else does all the real work.

Oh yeah PS - this week I are be mostly reading "The Dud Avocado" by Elaine Dundy, "Prester John" by John Buchan, "The Magician's Doubts" by Michael Wood, "The Post-Birthday World" bu Lionel Shriver, and "The Oxford Murders" by Guillermo Martinez.