Well, we never could have predicted what happened to us this year. On a personal note, I moved to Wood Green Waterstone's in January, bought a flat with my girlfriend in July, lost my job in August, started a limited company in November with a man who this time last year i'd only met once, started a blog, borrowed £x from a bank and that's just the stuff I can tell you!
So what chance have we got in predicting what'll happen in 2008. Let's find out.
Our Predictions
January; The BIG GREEN bookshop opens to fanfares and there is celebrating in the streets of North London well into the night. Our first customer brings a book back that they got at Christmas, claiming 'it was definitely bought here'.
February; Crockatt & Powell II opens in the cosmopolitan Fulham Road. It is called Powell & Crockatt after a furious argument between Matthew and Adam, and the first customer buys '4 yards of books to fill my new shelves'.
March; Scott Pack reveals that the rumours are true, he is Steve Stack, author of 'It Is Just You, Everything's not Shit'. He also admits to being John TwelveHawks and The Batman.
April; Profits soar at Waterstone's after a sticker misprint means that their latest promotion is a 2 for 3. WH Smith quickly counters this with a '50% on' promotion for their top 40 hardbacks.
May; JK Rowling donates for charity a fart in a jam jar. Amazon buy it for $3.6million, and runs a competition in which the winner gets to open the jar.
June; Claiming 'every little helps', Tesco starts just selling just the last chapters of books, and circling the bits that we should read.
July; publishing assistants at a large publishing House get a 15% pay rise, but turn it down saying ,'we get paid enough already'.
August; Christmas promotions start in earnest at Borders, WH Smiths, and Waterstone's.
September; An updated Kindle is released which vibrates and has flick pictures in the corner of the book, because nobody who buys one is really interested in reading are they?
October; Katie Price wins the Man Booker prize for Shiny, her latest novel. Michael Portillo calls it 'a tour-de-force'.November; Top selling xmas titles start to come through the pack, including 'do spiders belch?', 'the slighlty Adventurous book for Grannies', 'Jamie on rollerskates' and 'Hammond, May and Clarkson ridicule stuff surrounded by goons lapping up every little thing they do'.
December; The BIG GREEN bookshop sells it's 1000th copy of Life in the UK. Our last customer of the year brings a book back that they got at Christmas, claiming 'it was definitely bought here'....
you mark my words, it's all gonna happen.
OK, you're lucky I don't sue you for a new laptop - I was drinking tea when I read your predictions and October's was so funny I nearly sprayed it all over the screen! Just had to choke instead... Great predictions, thanks for the laugh and here's hoping the truth is that TBGB is a howling, runaway success!
ReplyDeleteBetter start saving so I can bid for that fart in a jam jar ....
ReplyDeleteI just read "November" out to my husband, and when he got to the May, Hammond and Clarkson book was heard to say "Love it. I'd buy that". There's just no accounting for taste.
ReplyDelete