Brrr...

Cold, isn't it? our little heaters are struggling to heat the air around them, but there it is. Heat is a rich man's luxury in England at the moment, so short of making a tinder bundle from the excessive packaging from some of our distributors (yeah Bertrams, i'm looking at you) and starting a fire in the middle of the shop, or inviting Jeremy Clarkson to the shop to come and spout a load of hot air like he does, we'll just have to wrap up warm.
We're looking at non book products (bookshop speak) at the moment. Here's something that we're going to be stocking. They're lovely lovely bookmarks.

lovely lovely.

We're also trying to work out what cards and calendars to stock for chrimbo, and that's a strange thing. It's OUR money this year, so getting calendars with a bigger discout if they're firm sale (we can't return them if they don't sell), or playing safe but making less money is just one of the many many dilemmas we're facing.

What about cards. One idea is to offer a non-card service. The idea is that people give money to us to give to charity, and for that we send an e-card to someone (a xmas card sent via e-mail). The cost to the environment that sending a xmas card is huge and this is an interesting way of doing something about it. Working out the logistics for this is a bit fun, but hopefully we can sort it out in the next week or so. I suspect we'll also be selling cards too....

We've decided against a wrapping service. Eminem was double booked so this is out of the question now. pnew, pnew, pnew.

I've looked at mugs, glasses, umbrellas, pens, diaries, notebooks, skittles, lollipops and rock amongst other things and hopefully we'll get the mix right.

I've put a little wager on two footie matches tonight. West Ham to win at Old Trafford and there to be more than 4 goals in the Arsenal Spurs match. Mmmm