Important Information

I found out last night that Simon is the 360th most popular name for a boy last year. This is from the list of names registered in the UK.
Names in the top 100 include;
25 Jayden! (I suspect this is the Goody effect)
26 is Logan (the Berry effect we shall call this, or the ...Run effect)
45 is Finley (the Fire Engine is to blame. It's not going to be the Dr's casebook is it!)
there is Zak and Zac in there too, which I suspect High School Musical is responisble for.

For the Girls names
Freya is in at 24 (clearly the Key effect here)
Lexi (!) is at 44 (these are registered names)
Lola is only at 76 (Charlie is at 4)

Tim is now at position 1061 and Timothy is on 650. Come on people.

If you want to know about your name here's the link.

I also found out that Travis the chimpanzee has a wikipedia page. For a moment I thought this was insane. What on earth has Travis done to deserve a mention on Wikipedia. But then I realised that Coleen was on it, so everything's OK.

We've introduced a Book of the Month!!
it's taken a bleedin' long time to eventually come out in paperback but here is the book that we like so much we've dedicated a whole month in promoting.

.
The Company of Liars by Karen Maitland.
I was lucky enough to get a copy of this book last year and was gripped, entranced, and generally enthralled by this wonderful book. I wrote a review of it on the blog. Here it is . We're selling it at money off!! We want everyone to read this book. Even Coleen and Travis (RIP).

if you're looking to buy some books, I suggest a train journey or a bike ride to Wood Green. Someone told me today there was a really lovely bookshop there.

My Tesco rant will have to wait another day.