Happy New Year

Well, it's 2009 already, it seems only yesterday it was 2008.

I have not made any new years resolutions again, apart from the usual "Do good things more and bad things less", but I can't promise to stick to it. One year I gave up Class A drugs, with remarkable success (that year and every year in fact). I may try to eat Humus a little less this year.

Christmas 2008 was really nice, just spending time with friends and family, got some great presents including the Bourne Trilogy on DVD and a book called Professor Stewart's Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities, as well as lots of other nice things.

New Year was spent out at Half Moon, a great house party with charades and the "rizzla game" and mini sparklers and nibbles. Thanks to Dennis and Lucia for the invite!

I won't promise to write more on my blog in the coming year, that would be foolish and doomed from the outset, but I will try and update at least every few weeks. I think even I can manage that!

SPCK Bookshop Exeter - R.I.P.

It looks like the shop that I spent many years working in, and was much loved by its staff and customers over the years has finally closed closed down.



Of course it was only a shell of a business in the last few years anyway, with no new stock and terrible mismanagement and sporadic opening hours (and weeks on end of being closed), but still, it is a sad sight to see it stripped bare of stock. I hope my former colleague won't mind me quoting from an email she sent me yesterday (edited to take some names and local context out).

"I saw a notice declaring a Closing Down Sale with an offer of 40% off all stock.
However, whatever staff they had employed were told this morning that the shop was closing today... later there were two men there and cartons (presumably of books) stacked waiting to be loaded. They said they had had instructions to clear everything... the entire stock was being transferred to York."

She goes on to say how upsetting she found the sight, and I have to agree (as I sure you can from the pictures) that seeing the shop looking this way, when it was once a thriving hub of activity in the Cathedral area and wider community in Exeter is very sad.







Of course for many the saga continues, the Brewers (the American brothers who took over the shop from SPCK) have found themselves in court for various reasosn in the UK and in the states, and many former employees lives have been ruined by the actions of their management. You can follow the saga on this blog http://spckssg.wordpress.com/



"...this really looks like the end of the shop."

Things that are free

Even though I am a Guardian reading borderline lefty (you can't be a centrey really, can you?) my heart is always warmed buy things that are free at the point of use in our society. It should not come as a shock, that is what socialism is about, but it still does.

This week I had cause to revisit the library, long forgotten since the weather turned semi reliable a few months ago and I started reading less (in fact the pile of books is accumulating, just as I thought I was going to be at a “point zero” in unread books). The reason was a trip to Rome booked for September, and the need to get some guide books, but not being able to buy them as all my money will be used paying to go to Rome. A catch 22 that the library provides a route out of.

Anyway, the point is that it feels odd to walk in somewhere, pick up books and walk out with no money changing hands. It was a bit like the time that Britannia Breakdown rescued my poor old Panda car from a busy road and got it going, I felt the need to give the repair man something (I didn't, as essentially I am tight).

I now feel a bit guilty that in my job I help people pay less tax on their savings, in fact I should be trying to encourage them to pay more, so I can read more books for free and and I remain the correct side of centre.