GLORY!!!!

Simon;

So, it really happened. Having been open for only 11 weeks, we won the Haringey Business Awards New Business of the Year 2008. It's hard to believe, but here it is.
That's our name that is.

The evening started off at the Decorium, North London's Premiere Banquetting Venue. Actually it started in The Goose, and the the Jolly Anglers. The Goose was too busy so we went for a 'livener' in the 'JAnglers' as it's known. Suitably nervous and excited we arrived at the Decorium. Oooh Look

Oooh Look how many smartly dressed people there were.

We had some pretty tough opposition, especially from the Alek at Leader Financial, who have set up a brilliant company to help (mainly) Polish speakers get financial help in Haringey. Here's Alek (and if I had any sort of a memory I would be able to tell you his partner was)

You have to remember that this award is for the best new business in ALL of Haringey, so to get into the last 3 was an amazing achievement, and the thought of a free meal was enough to cheer up Tim. I put on my best shirt.

After the pre dinner drinks and the lovely meal, the awards got underway, and thankfully the first up was us. I never expected that we'd win and it was absolutely crazy when 'and the winner is.....The Big Green Bookshop' was announced. Tim and I were ushered up to the stage and I grabbed the award and Tim was passed the microphone (I think, by me). He thanked people and said he had a 20 minute speech prepared (ha ha ha) and then I said thanks and then we got whisked off to have official photos. These weren't them. Tim singing...

. Me with the Mayor, the lovely Alan Dobbie (lab), who should win awards in Wood Green every year for the work he does in the area.

Anyway. That was that, and today it was back to reality. The hangover is now over and I shall shortly be enlightening you all on our latest marketing campaign!!

Thanks for all of you who voted for us, and continue to support us. We work really really hard and know that the customers are the people who decide whether we succeed or not. There's no resting on laurels, just because we've got a trophy, but it's nice to get a bit of recognition...innit?

We have had some Murakami progress, but my lips are sealed at the moment...

I'm here Now

Tim;

So you can go home.

Not hungover. Still Drunk

Haringey Business Awards

Simon;

We Won!

I'm massively hungover, so i'll write more after a bit of sleep and maybe coffee. I'm sure Tim'll turn up at the shop soon....

Back to Work

Simon;

I've had a day and a half off, and it's helped heal the Wembley wounds that'll be there for a long time. My Mum came to see us, and in case you thought that your mum was the best in the world, i'm sorry to shatter your illusion. It was probably a good try though.
She arrived on Sunday afternoon and after visiting the shop and pottering around Wood Green Katie cooked a lovely roast chicken (and other stories) in the evening, washed down with a very acceptable Montepulciano D'abruzzo (£2.99 or 2 for a fiver), and then we watched 'Enchanted', a wonderfully daft story about fairy tale characters finding themselves in New York. If you haven't seen it here's a little clip I love a parody (Vanessa, for example).

Then we all went to beddybyes and looked forward to a lovely bank holiday Monday sunshine special. However we probably should have looked at the weather report.
However it didn't put us off, and after a croissant and cuppa we headed off to Bruce Castle.
This is the second most famous place in Tottenham. Bruce Castle was Roy Castle's great great grandfather, and the family motto was 'Dedicatum O Dedicatum'. We saw some amazing antique tap shoes which had been passed onto Roy to do his world record attempt. There were also statues of Norris and Ross McWhirter, and Roy's trademark trumpet.
Sir Rowland Hill also lived here for a time. Here's a statue of the great man. Not only did he invent the penny post, and as no doubt you stamp collectors will know, he was actually Harry Hill's great great grandfather. They have a family motto, which we saw at Bruce Castle. It was 'Stoofus TV Burpus', which I think translates as, 'sorted, respect due'.
Anyway we had a great time there, and I got a postcard and a couple of books about the Hills and the Castles to read when I got home.
IN the evening we jumped on the bus and arrived at Muswell Hill (another of Harry's relatives, as I beleive). We had a great meal at ASK (a restaurant chain owned by Morrisey), and managed to dodge the showers on the way home.
So it was back to work today, and Tim had the day off to make up for yesterday. My Mum came in with me this morning and stayed in the shop for an couple of hours, as I tried to look as though I knew what I was doing. I unpacked boxes, phoned a couple of customers, answered a few emails, blew some balloons up and introduced her to one of our local customers (I say customers in the loosest possible sense) Andrew, who was on his way to get his hair cut, but wanted to come and say hello to Mrs Key. He was charming, and stayed in the shop longer than I've ever seen before (I told you my Mum was special).
Eventually it was time for her to go back to the mighty City of Bristol, and as she got on the number 29 bus (traditionally known as '29, bus of crime'), to get into London town I was left with a lovely feeling of the fun we'd had over the last day or two.
The day at the shop was rather encouraging too. We sold books and stuff, so hurah.

I hear that the Independent on Sunday has been to Fulham/Waterloo. Well done to Adam and Matthew. Superstars innit.
And also congrats to the choice of bookshop that managed to get to number 21. I hope that someone gets a big old bonus for this, and I ain't talking about the regional manager.
We're going to an awards ceremony ourselves on Thursday. We've been shortlisted for New Business of the Year award at the Haringey Growth Business Awards. We might get a trophy, and also we've had to let someone know our dietary requirements for the ceremony. Blimey, we're living the life of Riley.

laters

It Hurts

Simon;

...i suspect that i'll never visit Hull ever.

It takes a few days to get over stuff like this, but bear with me.

Some Things That I Am Thinking from Inside My Headbone

Simon;

So, it seems that the misery memoir is not selling as well as it used to. Who'd have thought it? Sudoku anyone? Books written from blogs? the spice girls reforming after Take That did it? Big Brother 24? Celeb scandal magazines? Star Wars? Indiana Jones?
I suspect that some of the books published which fit into this newly created genre are absolutely rubbish. I also suspect that the books that got people into this newly created genre (million little pieces, child called it, angela's ashes) aren't as rubbish. I fear for the future of anonymous memoirs. Those call girls just don't write as well as they used to.

I think that there are some booky wookshops out there that should be cheered and visited with full wallets (and left with empty ones). This list starts with us, but that's not the point. Mostly Books in Abingdon won gold at this years Nibbies. New Bookshop of the Year is a brilliant accolade and hurrah for them. They have a wonderful bookshop and they seem to be able to put together some great events and if I nick a few of their ideas, it's simply an homage to their greatness.
And then there's Crockatt & Powell. No nibbies for them though. what's all that about? They're a chain now god damn it, but despite that they have just opened the most sumptuous bookshop in Fulham. Congratulations and all that to them.

Here's some books. They are good. The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse We got it from those dang tootin yankie doodle Americans at Baker and Taylor, and i love it. I discovered it about 12 years ago, and being something of a fairy tale fan (Anglela Carter is fab) found the whole book intoxicating and escapist magic. Come to Wood Green and buy a copy if you like. 253 by Geoff Ryman Another book published ages ago, but what's wrong with that.
There are seven carriages on a Bakerloo Line train, each with 36 seats. A train in which every passenger has a seat will carry 252 people. With the driver, that makes 253.
This novel describes an epic journey from Embankment station, to the Elephant and Castle, named after the Infanta de Castile who stayed there, once. This is an example of the verbal imprecision that costs British industry millions of pounds a year.
Numbers, however, are reliable. So that the illusion of an orderly universe can be maintained, all text in this novel, less headings, will number 253 words.
Each passenger is described in three ways:
Outward appearance : does this seem to be someone you would like to read about?
Inside information : sadly, people are not always what they seem.
What they are doing or thinking : many passengers are doing or thinking interesting things. Many are not.
I nicked that from the website. I still love this book, and I especially like the fact it has a page dedicated to a pigeon who's found himself on the tube by mistake.

Look who came to the shop this week for Big Green WednesdayKAREN Mc(FLIPPIN)COMBIE, that's who. Ally's World, Indie Kidd, Sadie Rocks and Stella Etc. Karen McCombie was lovely and the kids really enjoyed meeting her (I'm guessing by the big smiles and stuff like that). Thanks Karen, see you in June for more fun.

No news from Scott Pack with Haruki's number, and Stan hasn't replied to my email yet. I didn't think it was going to be that easy really. Next week we'll take it to the next level.

Bristol City are playing Hull City tomorrow to decide who goes into the premiership. This is rather important for me and although I wasn't able to get a ticket to Wembley coupled with the fact i'm working tomorrow, it's likely i'll be rather distracted.
I'm not able to put into words how important this football match is to me, but please think good thoughts towards the West Country tomorrow.

Lastly today, the summer promotions are arriving on the high street. It might be more cost effective if they started producing 'Not 3 for 2' stickers, as they wouldn't need to sticker as many books.

Remember to have lovely Bristol City thoughts now...

As an aside...

Simon;

whilst I await a call from Scott Pack with Haruki's mobile phone number, I thought there'd be no harm in sending this e-mail to Stan Lee

Hello Stan,
We own a bookshop in London, England, and have run a competition to ask our customers who they want to see to do an event in our shop. Stan, you got the most passionate response from our customers. Tell me, when do you plan to visit the UK again, and when you do, could you fit a visit to our shop into your busy schedule. If you want to know more about us, we're called the Big Green bookshop, so googling the name will bring up all sorts of stuff about us.
Look forward to hearing from you soon,
Simon

I'll let you know what he says.

Murakami. The search begins

simon:

OK, so the votes are in and you've decided that you'd like us to try and get Haruki Murakami to visit the shop.
Fair enough.

So, I guess the first thing to do is this.... does anyone know his phone number, or e-mail address.
Looking forward to hearing from you

It's Blog Post Number 200, isn't it.

Simon,

This is our 200th posting, and as such will be an epic story of love, voting, holidays, windows, events, JCBs, angry mobs and awards. I suggest you put the kettle on and make yourself a cuppa, or pour yourself a glass of wine, as I think this might ramble on for some time.

I've been on holiday with Katie for a couple of days. We thought it would be a good idea to have a break before our baby is born at the end of June (July 3rd officially, but I have my suspicions it'll be a few days early). We spent the weekend in Lyme Regis, and I have to say, it's gorgeous. Mmmm, Lyme Regis. It's got 3, possibly 4, bookshops. We went into one, a second hand bookshop that had an amazing range of stock, despite being a health and safety nightmare, and were greeted with the proprietor, in a panama hat and a lovely safari jacket, watching with utter glee a live performance of 'I Want To Break Free' by Queen on his computer. As we browsed the shelves and chose a couple of titles to buy, the song came on again...and as we continued to look around he put it on once again, and stared and grinned at the screen in front of him, as Fredddie Mercury strutted and pranced through the song that we'd heard 3 minutes earlier. He did reluctantly serve a couple from who were looking for some Grisham, but hurried back to his screen as soon as he could to watch the frontman for a few more minutes. The shop was great though, and I picked up a couple of ideas to bring back to Wood Green. I suspect Tim wil be surprised tomorrow when I turn up in a white catsuit with a figure hugging yellow jacket to boot.
In Lyme Regis we also did all those seaside things that everyone should do. Mini Golf. I lost by one shot.. Walking along the coast.
Discussing the audacity of seagulls. We decided that gulls were wankers, and have no sense of decorum. They sit on car bonnets and on top of picnic boxes with that look about them....arseholes.

We also visited the wonderful Chimp and Zee Bookshop, owned by Catherine and Laurence Anholt. This is the only bookshop that I know of (and probably the only one that exists) that only sells books by the owners! It's amazing and clever and beautiful and magical and special. But by no means anywhere near as amazing and clever and beautiful and magical and special as the person standing in front of the shop window here. If you get a chance to go and see their shop, please do.

EVENTS
we've ahd a load of shop events recently and here's a little bit about them.

An Evening with Dr Sandra Richards.
What a great evening, hosted by the soon to be legendary Dougie
The evening was a huge success and by the end it was standing room only as Dr sister sandra started talking. Lovely people.

We had a poetry evening recently, and the local Stanza poetry society performed for us. It was, once again, a popular event, and we had between 20 and 30 people turn up to listen to the poets. I asked for the audience (before the performances) to give me a smile....

Lisa Tickner was in last week to talk about her new book Hornsey 1968, and although it wasn't a full house, it was a fascinating talk, given life by a very very good speaker.

we have a couple more events this week. Daniel Davies is joining us on Thursday for the launch of his new book 'The Isle of Dogs'. I read this on Friday, and it is magnificently uncomfortably engrossing, and the twist at the end of the book just shouldn't be allowed...at all. It is excellent, and I'm looking forward to meeting the author of this crazy book.

Other Things

This doesn't help if you want any customers whatsoever

Two weeks down the kaahsi


Anyway, good news in the shape of Marie and Sabrina, who have made our dire attempts at window displays look even more embarrassing by doing this in about 90 minutes.
More volunteers and we continue to feel very very humbled by the help we've been getting.

Murakami.

So you've voted for MURAKAMI to come to the shop. Are you mental? Who do you think we are?
Yeah Baby. That's right. We're the Big Green Bookshop. That's what I'm talking about.
I'm surprised he hasn't been on the phone to beg for a visit since the results have come in. If you're reading this Haruki, just give me a call and we can sort this out nice and easy. You don't want to let the fans down do you?
If I hear nothing in the next couple of days, it looks like i'm just going to have to get the ball rolling myself.

Best New...

Tim

We've been invited to the Haringey Business Awards, because of all you lovely people who filled in the voting form. We don't know if we've won anything (other than a free dinner) but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Which makes it hard to type.

We know we haven't won best new restaurant, despite some strange voting. And why not? We give out free coffee. What other restaurant does that? I often eat my lunch in the shop, and we have supplied crisps, biscuits, corn chips, cakes and other digestables to our customers at the events. Oh, and wine and juice and water and stuff, too

So why shouldn't we be nominated for the best new restaurant? Hmmm?

Oh yes. Vote for Stan Lee