Modern times

As I sit here scrabbling around trying to come up with a new plot, or at least follow where this one is taking me, with crap TV on in the background, I suddenly despair at the psychology of modern advertising.
It seems like every product in the modern world has to be the most amazing experience of your life. There is no longer any margin for good, or cool or happy experience, it has to be amazing, whether it's a telephone, a drink, a hotel, a holiday or a crispbread. And yet, at the same time, it has to be the cheapest the world has ever come across. Except that it's called the 'best possible price' because 'cheap' has connotations of - cheapness.
Mostly our lives are more comfortable than medieval royalty, more comfortable even than the very rich of sixty years ago. We have abundant choice of cheap food, booze, holidays. Even if we cannot afford a new car, a fifteen-year-old car can be more reliable and certainly less prone to rust than a new car of thirty years ago.
So, with this abundance of the easy life, what do we hanker after? Our fellow humans in advertising know - what we want is bragging rights. We want to have obtained better for cheaper than our friends so that we can lord it over them. Pathetic, isn't it?

Back to the grindstone

At least half a dozen people have read the book and asked when the next one is coming out. Now I thought I was just 'writing a book' as part of some unspoken bucket list but now I am intrigued to see if I even can do it again.

Even though I invented pretty much everything that happened in G&D I realise now that I used a lot of filler info from my own experience. Now I will have to invent all of it.

Gulp

It's been a quiet couple of months, pushing copies of the book onto people who show an interest and getting extremely good reviews from them.

A milestone a couple of days ago when the local bookshop Queens Park Books put three copies on their shelves.

And there it is! Wow!

Of course, we have yet to see whether it catches anyone's eye...

Yellow Pages

Had a JR Hartley moment today when C wanted to give someone a copy of The Book of Starters that I did the photography for in 1996.

Fortunately, I didn't have to traipse around the second-hand bookshops. C found it on eBay for £2.50 in about 10 seconds...

Back in the day #1

On my first day driving the 31 bus back in 1977, I drove past some roadworks at the junction of Earls Court Road and Old Brompton Road.

Immediately afterwards, I heard the bell being rung repeatedly. It took a few moments to register and remember that this was the emergency stop signal from the conductor. I pulled up in Redcliffe Gardens, stopped the engine and went back to see what the problem was.

My conductor was standing on the platform calmly smoking a fag, so I asked him what the problem was. He turned his head upwards and nodded. I followed his gaze and saw that the upper deck had a large hole ripped in it.

I was amazed. Apparently, as we had passed the roadworks, a mechanical digger had swung into the bus, gouging away several feet of the upper deck.

I asked if anyone was hurt, whether there had been anyone up there.
The conductor said, "Just one bloke, black fella, he got off the bus, white as a sheet!"

Post free giveaway weekend

You could say that there was a vast increase in downloads - 33 over the weekend as opposed to 23 (paid) since August 26.

I suppose it has taught me a little about how to use Witter. However, 33 seems a small number considering how much info I put out there. I will be very interested to see if any reviews come of it. Everything I read now says free giveaways are BAD as people don't read what they have got for free and then if they do, leave shitty reviews.

Unless anything truly appalling happens between now and then, I shall give it another try mid-December and then put the book on any/all other e-book outlets.

Twitter

Oh Jeez. I have just been given a tutorial on using Twitter. How does anyone have the time..??