Normal Service will Resume Soon

Simon;

I tell you something weird. I can't do this blog at the shop. It feels like i'm skiving off, and the regional manager will come in at any moment and wrap me over the knuckles with a Front of Store Checklist or something.

Talk about being institutionalised!

I still haven't sat on the sofa and read a couple fo chapters of a book yet, or eaten my lunch on the shopfloor, and I still fast forward System of a Down when it comes on the Ipod in the shop.
I'm slowly learning, and the chains of the chains are slowly becoming looser. I threw away a 'no sale' slip last week, and I told a rep they didn't need to make an appointment. I've even ordered books from small independent publishers! Zany or what?

We're getting on with stuff in the shop. The first Reading Group meeting is this Tuesday, and we should be getting about 12-15 people turning up. The kid's reading group is taking it's time to get going, but it'll pick up with a bit of luck.

We've sorted out lots and lots of events, the latest being

Tom Hodgkinson is coming on April 30th to talk about his book of Idle Pleasures

Dr Sandra Richards is coming to the shop on May 4th to talk about her book 'The Journey'

We have the local Poetry Group 'Stanza' joining us on 14th May

On 15th May Lisa Tickner will be at the shop to talk about her new book which charts the demonstration at Hornsey Art College and it's aftermath. 'Hornsey 1968' is going to be a great evening

We have local author Kwame M A Mcpherson reading from his new book 'Deep Roots, Strong Tree' on May 17th.

On May 20th we've got an evening of debate and amusement in the company of a few of the bloggers from the Guardian Unlimited. Definites so far include Sam Jordison, Jean Hannah Edelstein, Matthew de Abaitua and Ben Myers, and there may be some more guests to come.

Daniel Davies will be with us on May 22nd to help celebrate the publication of his exciting new book The Isle of Dogs. We have a small car park for those interested....

We've got a couple more things to firm up in May, and also we're having a whole week in June celebrating the best Crime Writing.

We've now set up 15 school accounts, and our 'Big Green Wednesdays' is sorted up to the Summer holidays (almost).

So we're keeping ourselves busy.

I was lucky enough to be invited by my good friend Alister to The Emirates to watch Arsenal play Liverpool yesterday. Man, that stadium is impressive. Arsene Wenger was an angry man, but it was a great day, and I felt very lucky to be there.

We met up with our brilliant accountant on Thursday, who between the pints gave us some very very good advice, and also told us that we should have done our returns in January. Whoops. One phonecall to the Vat helpline and everything was OK. Tim has been busily inventing new spreadsheets since the meeting, and I occasionaly hear him in the office cackling like a mad professor as he invents a dastardly new button that calculates Row 3 + Row 12 as a percentage of the sum of columns D and H. It scares me sometimes.

I'm going to go to the London Book Fair for the first time ever next week. I'm quite excited.

We also have someone (not just anyone, a professional graphic designer no less) who's going to design some new flyers for the shop, at a fraction of the cost. We really are lucky to have so many wonderful people supporting us.

I'm reading You're a Bad Man Mr Gum at the moment, and it's very funny, very daft, and I love it. .

and I'm having a beef and ale stew for tea. The ideal way to finish a lazy Sunday evening (I'm being lazy, and Katie's making the stew. You're a bad man Mr Key).