Wednesday, October 25, 2006
An Archeresque Plug for My Wonderful Life
The matter of print on demand books and their impending destruction of horrible bookshop chains won't leave me alone. Having survived almost two weeks of abuse and, horror, praise for my article on this in The Sunday Times, I now find myself about to appear on that bizarre Radio Four lunchtime show You and Yours, confronted, doubtless, by an outraged bookseller brandishing implausible figures. But he will not be my main concern. What troubles me is that I don't understand You and Yours. Nobody does. At high levels of the BBC they shrug their shoulders when the show is mentioned. Maybe I'll bring it up on air. This evening I shall be on 18 Doughty Street discussing the same subject. Again I shall be uncomprehending as, when I tried to see this web show, I couldn't. Jeffrey, in contrast, has merely been to the Affordable Art Fair and Spamalot. He is struggling, no doubt about it.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Let them feel the white hot fury of your being, Bryan. Your mantra should be from the Bhagavad Gita, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." In short, take no shit.
ReplyDeleteHaving listened to the appropriate "You and Yours" slot on the same day as a booktrade colleague was visiting me from Boston (as in USA not Lincs) I came to the conclusion that you really need to go on a course of R&R and start visiting a few "catholic" bookshops because you uttered total codswallop. But then of course that is the norm for "You and Yours", be confrontational, be alaramist, be negative and the guest can have plenty of free airtime to damage traditional sales outlets.
ReplyDeleteAt least you have preceeded Jeffrey by your appearance on 18 Doughty Street, which I am plugged into as I write this, having experienced technical difficulties myself in the past, so I'm staying plugged in.
ReplyDeleteJeffrey has reached a high point with this last entry. "Flew to Amsterdam for the launch of the Dutch edition of False Impression." And it just gets worse (or better) from there. The highlight of his day was when he went "to the Rijksmuseum, to see Rembrandt". I wonder how Rembrandt is these days. Think he's still doing that painting gig or has he moved on. I'd ask Jeffrey but I'm sure he has a castle opening to attend.
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