Me And My Big Mouth

Gratuitous Socks

Magician, amateur chef, comedian, novelist, and now blogger John Lenahan unleashes A Year Of Gratuitous Socks, in which he attempts to wear a different pair of socks every day, on an unsuspecting world wide web.

It will, of course, have a bit more to it than just socks but let's be honest, it would be hard to top the whole socks thing.  Not that it will stop him from trying.

Worth bookmarking, whatever your feelings about socks.

That Was The Year That Was

Well, it has been quite a year.  In many ways I will be glad to see the back of 2007 as some of it was a bit shit but there were several highlights and things to look back on fondly.

I published my first book as an editor, and also my first book as an author.  I feel justly proud of both.  Neither troubled the Top 10 but then they were never going to.   I can live with that.  Fascinating experiences both.

That very first book, Gents by Warwick Collins, was hailed as a classic by The Times.  Not a bad start.

I also managed to squeeze out three more books as editor with the wonderful support of the Friday Project team - gorgeous and talented each and every one of them.

Playing It Safe by Alan Pearce has sold well into five figures and was one of our bestselling books this Christmas.  I must tell you about the genesis of that book sometime as it was a true case of serendipity.

Our first Friday Edition - Brad Listi's Attention. Deficit. Disorder. - was produced as a limited edition rubber hardback for a bit of a laugh but has managed to become quite a collector's item and is creating a bit of stir in advance of the paperback in February.  The paperback has subsequently been selected for a bunch of retail promotions, which is great news.

And Little Howard's Unpleasant Lullaby had a difficult birth but finally hit the shelves for the week the author did his turn at the Royal Variety Performance.  Good timing.

I somehow managed to convince Oliver Postgate, Peter Firmin and Tama Janowitz to sign for a small independent publisher (albeit with big ambitions) and also snapped up an underwear model, a Perrier-nominated comedian and a magician (abracadabra!).

I do have to remind myself at times that 2007 was my first year out of retail since 1990.  I didn't really miss it much.  I suspect it didn't miss me either, at least if all the unanswered emails from my ex-colleagues are anything to go by (I am sure they are very busy, clicked delete by mistake, or simply forgot to reply - surely I didn't say anything to offend, did I?). 

Certainly the face of bookselling has changed considerably in that time.  For the better?  I guess that remains to be seen.  You'd think the agents, authors and publishers who enjoyed dissing me in the press should be delighted at how things have turned out.  And they are delighted, aren't they?  Hmmm.

What else was fun?  I thoroughly enjoyed my short appearance on The Today Programme opposite Professor John Sutherland and having two articles published in The Times made me feel like a real writer.  Oh, and this blog passed 100,000 readers.  Which was nice.

There are probably other highlights but those will do for now.

It has all been jolly exciting.  Thanks for spending some of it with me.

Roll on 2008!

Hand Picked By Readers

I have been tipped off that two of our books have appeared in the Guardian Hand Picked Books of 2007.  This is the selection made by readers of that newspaper rather than the critics.

Frequent visitor to Me & My Big Mouth, William Rycroft, selects Gents by Warwick Collins as one of his reads of the year.  Well done that man.

And a paramedic chooses Blood, Sweat & Tea by Tom Reynolds.

Neither book, as far as I recall, managed a mention at all by the Guardian when they were published so it is good to see their readers redressing the balance.

Nice work.

Read Sitting Down

If this is as close as we will get to a Steve Martin memoir then we should probably be happy enough.  Born Standing Up tells of the comedian's early family life, his spell as a teen magician and his slow rise to fame through variety clubs and the comedy circuit, finally becoming the most successful stand up comedian in the States.

It is a fascinating story told with restraint but also, as you would expect, plenty of humour.  He is at his best when unpicking the mechanics of his comedy, why he would do things in a certain way and how he got a laugh from them.  His explanation as to why he simply stopped performing one day is a fine insight into the anatomy of success.  He suddenly realised that the audience were no longer laughing at his jokes, they were laughing in anticipation of his jokes, and sometime laughing at the stuff that wasn't funny.  He was Steve Martin, the wild and crazy guy, and that alone sold out stadium after stadium.  He couldn't take risks any more.  No one was listening.

As you read the final few pages of this short book you really feel you understand what made this original performer pack in the stand up shows.  But once you put the book down you remind yourself that he is currently making films like Cheaper By The Dozen 2 and yet another Pink Panther remake.  Something doesn't sit right, does it?

But that doesn't detract from this excellent read.  Martin is a fine writer, as his impressive novels testify, and this memoir should be required reading for Gervais, Brand, Carr (x2) and the others.

Holiday Viewing

I will have read about 150 books by the end of the year but only watched about 40 movies.  Considering that a book takes me, on average, a day or two to get through and most films are a couple of hours long that is quite an odd ratio.  Especially as I love movies, whether it be at the cinema or sitting on the sofa watching a DVD.

I blame the internet.  I spend too much time in the evenings online and not enough with a tub of popcorn in my lap.  I intend to change all that next year.  I am making a start.  I joined the BFI during 2007 and have had some delightful trips to the South Bank to see a diverse selection ranging from Knocked Up to All About Eve, but I am going to step up a gear in 2008.

As anyone who has been to Pack Mansions will vouch, I also have a stockpile of unwatched DVDs and a Sky+ box full of recorded movies.  This Christmas I have been trying to make a dent in them.  But only a small one.

So, what have I been watching?

The other half has turned into something of an action movie lover this year.  She insisted on going to the local Odeon to see the latest Bourne installment and was very excited about watching Casino Royale over Christmas.  We taped it and saw it on Boxing Day.

Now, Bond movies are fascinating when you stop to think about them.  You have to suspend disbelief and forget every Bond movie you have seen before as they have spanned 40 years or so, jump backwards and forwards in time and tend to contradict each other.  So, in Casino Royale we have a version of Bond in the year 2006 who has only just been given double-O status.  Ignore the fact that he has shagged women on the space shuttle in the 80s, fought off the Cold War in the 60s and 70s, and already battled Murdoch-like media moguls in the 90s.  We all have to pretend that never happened, and we are more than happy to do so.

Having cast aside all sense of order and chronology you can now enjoy the new Bond.  And enjoy it I did although, and here's the thing, not nearly as much as I had hoped.  The movie had received rave reviews and been a huge smash hit so my expectations were high, perhaps too high.  It opened well enough with a couple of great action sequences and the plot sped along nicely.  Daniel Craig is excellent as Bond, the best since Connery on first viewing, and Eva Green is a fine Bond girl (even if I did keep thinking back fondly to her performance in The Dreamers).  Their chemistry works and the story keeps us busy.  All jolly good stuff.  However, about three quarters of the way through there is a false ending which is terrible and annoying and the remaining half hour or so didn't really manage to redeem it.  Some of the dialogue, even for a Bond movie, was dire, especially towards the end, and I was left somewhat disappointed.

In places it was excellent, in others awful, and overall it wasn't a patch on the Bourne trilogy.

A romantic comedy next.  The Holiday, starring Cameron Diaz (ding dong), Jude Law, Jack Black and Kate Winslet (even bigger ding and a resounding dong).  A simple premise: two women swap houses for the Christmas holidays as a way of getting over failed relationships.  So successful movie trailer maker Diaz leaves her sprawling LA pad for journalist Winslet's quaint Surrey cottage. 

Naturally they both find love during their brief stays despite lots of hiccups and hurdles.  Pretty standard Hollywood stuff, but then so are the great romantic comedies of the golden age and, while this isn't quite up to that quality, it is pretty good and everyone in it is nice and pretty and lovely.  It has a slight edge to it and a great array of tiny cameos.  The sort of film you are only ever going to watch once but you'll be glad you did.  Highly recommended if you have just discovered that the one you love has been cheating on you - the cheaters get a good thumping in this one.

Two down, a few hundred more to go.

Oops

Thanks to Jonathan for pointing out my glaring error in the last post.  Eat, Pray, Love has actually been out since March 2007 in the UK.  Which makes its success in the States even more interesting.  It sold 300,000 in one week alone over there but has only managed to sell about 12,000 in the UK in nine months.

Now, 12,000 is not a bad performance at all but the discrepancy in performance between here and America is vast, even given that we are a small country etc.

In all likelihood it will get a real boost from this US success and will turn into a big seller here in the months ahead.

It will be fascinating to see what it does.

The Bestselling Book In The World...

...and you probably haven't heard of it.

Well, you might have I suppose but as it is yet to be published over here you would be forgiven for your ignorance.  Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert sold over 300,000 copies last week alone in the US, making it the biggest seller in that territory over Christmas.  It has been a huge success.

It tells of the author's year travelling the world following a messy divorce and touches on spirituality as much as it does travel and memoir.  Whether us Brits are as happy to buy a book with added God as the Yanks remains to be seen, but the signs suggest it might do quite well over here.  Certainly Bloomsbury will be going for it with all guns blazing as they enter their post-Harry Potter era.

Token Purchases

So I went out armed with my £20 of book tokens (thanks Rhys!) and a list of authors:

Andrew Crumey
Fumiko Enchi
William Goldman
Hitomi Kanehara
Elinor Lipman
Tom McCarthy
Miyuki Miyabe
Dan Rhodes
Michael Simkins

Some more obscure than others, I grant you, but at least one of them is a current Costa Book Awards nominee and many of the others are reasonably well known.

I couldn't find one.  With a couple of authors they had copies of books I already own but not the ones I didn't.  I couldn't find a single book I wanted.

To be completely fair, this was two days after the Christmas mayhem and stock will be at its most depleted.  There were some great bargains on the big Christmas hardbacks but nothing took my fancy this year so I wasn't interested.

So I spent the tokens on annuals at 99p for the kids - definitely the best deals out there, never worth paying full price for them before Christmas - and a half price copy of the new Bagpuss book which, at £14.99 RRP makes me wonder how much we should charge for our mammoth Treasury of Lost Delights which now looks like running in to two 250-page volumes.

An Apple A Day

Isobella Jade, our teeny model author, is never shy when it comes to publicity and has managed to get herself in the New York Times today.  They love the story about writing her book in the Apple store.  I must speak to Steve Jobs about helping us promote it when we publish in 2009.

Sell Sell Sell

We went for a walk last night, through town and over the river to Eton.  It was a lovely mild night and the lights were on in lots of houses so we were able to sneak voyeuristic looks into other people's lives.

We walked through the main shopping street on the way back and all the empty stores were fully postered up for their big sales.  Half price, 60% off, 70% off, 75% off.  Discount messages all over the place.  Next opens at 5am, M&S opens at 6am, the whole place is primed for manic shoppers.

Now, I appreciate a bargain as much as the next person but there is no fucking way I am getting out of bed at half past four just to save some money on a pair of trousers.  There are more important things in life.  Like an extra few hours sleep and a nice cup of tea in bed, for example.

Lots of shops were open yesterday, Boxing Day.  It used to be that nowhere bothered to open on the 26th December apart from a few furniture stores but very recently it has become an important shopping day.  As little as 3 years ago Waterstone's tried it for the first time and proclaimed it a bit of a failure.  In some cases it cost more to open and run the stores than they took in through the tills.  Things are very different now though and the book chains probably opened as many branches as they could.  Except for Blackwells, of course.  I noticed that my local branch is closed till 2nd January.  Ahh, bless them.  I must remember to ask them how the 1970s are next time I am in.

Of course, book shops are never going to have bumper sales on Boxing Day.  Fashion and electronic retailers are going to steal their thunder.  People get very excited about saving £250 on a coat or getting a fridge for half price but it is difficult to wet your pants over a cookbook that was 50% off all through December anyway.  I suspect most of their trade will come from people who are in town for other things and are popping in to see what is on offer, perhaps with some book tokens burning a hole in their pocket.  Nonetheless, opening on the 26th has probably worked this time round, which shows how much the high street has changed in just a few short years.  Something that was deemed a waste of time when first trialed is now an essential part of Christmas trading.

I just feel sorry for the poor buggers who have to work in the shops.  They slave their arses off all December long and then manage just one day off before they have to smile sweetly behind the tills.  You have my sympathy if you are one of them.  Mind you, it is not as if Christmas trading hours are kept secret, but you know what I mean.  I hope they make up for it with a nice long weekend in January sometime, or perhaps by being extra rude to all their customers today.

If you were out shopping for bargains on this bright winter's day then I hope you found what you wanted.  I plan to venture out with my £20 of book tokens and see what I can get, but I don't know if the Sale tables will be my destination.  I reckon the jolly old A-Zs are the place to look.

I will report back with my purchases later.

It's Very Quiet... Perhaps Too Quiet

I write this in my new jumper and with a bit of a cold.  Sure signs that Christmas must have been and gone.

But hang on.  Shhh!  Can you hear that?

No?

Precisely.

It is silent here now.  My parents have been up for lunch and taken the kids away with them for a couple of days.  All is tranquil.  No bleeping of computer games.  No tripping over toys left in the middle of the floor.

We will miss them terribly but they get a second Christmas at the grandparents' house and we get a bit of peace and quiet and a chance to catch up on some sleep.

It was a hectic, but hugely enjoyable, run up to the big day with friends popping in every few hours to drop off presents.  The Woman Who Talked To Much stayed over the weekend and bought one of Rhian's pots for her parents (her first official sale - congratulations) before driving off on Christmas Eve.  While she was here I tried to get a copy of her book from my local Waterstone's for her to sign as a present for my mum but they had sold out of the hardback.  I gave her the new Nigel Slater instead.

I got to bed at midnight on Christmas Eve, after listening to Steve Stack's appearance on Radio Five Live, only to find myself immediately accosted by Ethan who stormed into our bedroom to inform us that he had heard me leave the stocking at the foot of his bed.  What I said was 'it was just me checking you were both sleeping soundly' while I was actually thinking 'bugger off back to bed, you are nearly nine, you were bound to rumble it sooner or later'.

He did go back to bed reasonably placated only to wake up again at half past three, this time with Martha in tow.  So that's when Christmas started for us.  Very exciting, but rather tiring.

I had bought the family a Wii as a big joint present so we spent most of the day playing silly games on that.  I am a bit of a convert as it is the first games console that actually seems to promote families playing together.  It is good fun anyway.

My personal present tally was top notch this year.  A fine array of Japanese literature, enough underwear to last me a month without washing anything and lots of beautiful bits and bobs including a rather swanky phone for the convent.  Martha and Ethan looked at it as if it were an alien object, most intrigued by the dial especially.

But all of that is behind us.  The kids safely banished to darkest Essex for a few days and we get a chance to sit around watching movies, eating cake and drinking tea.  Which is precisely what we are going to do now.  Casino Royale, leftover ham sandwich and chocolate biscuits.

Tomorrow will be a short stroll into town, after a lengthy lie-in, to spend my book tokens.

Normal service will resume shortly.  I have thought of loads of things to bore you with.  Hope you are all still having fun.

Boxing Day

I Don't Do Cards

My Christmas gift to you!

Excited?

Hope all is going smoothly with your Yueltide plans.

Have a happy Christmas/Winterval/Festivus!

The Symposium Is Live

Looking for something to read?  Ready Steady Book have put up their Books of the Year selection with contributions from the great and the good from the world of literature and blogging.  Oh, and me, which must have been some mistake.

Songs That Make Me Cry #6

I shall end this short weekly series with quite simply the greatest composition in the history of popular music.  This beautiful song is all about the most wonderful place on earth.  Home.

There's no place I'd rather be.

Where Was I Supposed To Hide This?

This arrived yesterday.  It is the main Christmas pressie for the Mother Of The Children.  I can't really hide the bloody thing so she gets it early.  Only problem is she refuses to put it outside in the cold so it is currently standing in the middle of the living room.

That wasn't the plan.

I know bugger all about bikes but apparently this is the business (hand made in Italy with a special English saddle).  Looks like something the butcher's boy would deliver sausages in to me.

She will have a few nice trinkets to unwrap on the day but this big one should keep me topped up with brownie points for a while.

My wrapping is notoriously shite (brown paper and sellotape) so I am secretly pleased I didn't have to attempt to gift wrap this bugger.  Small square things are about my limit.  Suffice to say that all the kids' presents (from Santa, naturally) will be wrapped by little elves (well, she is under five feet tall) and not by me.

I hope all your own Christmas preparations are going well.  We had reindeer for Christmas dinner last year, with camel on Boxing Day.  This year we have voted for a big fry up for Christmas lunch.  Awesome.

Live From Windsor

The Woman Who Talked To Much will be blogging live from my living room sofa throughout tonight's Strictly Come Dancing final.

You are all very welcome to join us.  Virtually, that is.

It is sure to be one of the interactive events of the year.

I'll put the kettle on.

Albums Of The Year: The Ethan & Martha Singalong

Put these on the stereo and the kids will sing along with every word.  I shouldn't be proud of that really.

But I am.

Other Albums Of The Year