Silhouettes and Shillelaghs

The hominid Peter Cox

Fantastic party last night to celebrate children’s publisher Egmont’s expansion into the US market. Egmont is a wonderful publisher, and are well ahead of the pack in terms of their ethical business practices, particularly with regard to their environmental impact - something of growing concern to many of my authors and indeed [...]

Stumped!

How do they do this? I’m utterly mystified! Please, gentle reader, enlighten me…

Eye Spy

I have a horrible feeling that, sooner or later (and very probably, far sooner than you’d expect) this technology will be used to provide editorial feedback on manuscripts. “Fantastic job, William darling! But the Eye Tracking says that people are skipping chapters 2 thru 20, can you just have a teensy little look at [...]

Vegan Thanksgiving

So, unbelievers and infidels, you thought that we vegans had a miserable time at Thanksgiving, did you? Let me show you the error of your ways! This was our menu last night:

Thanksgiving Day Menu

Welcome:

Rosemary Ale
Fresh Organic French Walnuts

Starter:

Sorrel Soup
Sourdough Bread

Main:

3-Grain Medley of Quinoa, Brown Basmati & Minnesota Wild Rice
Roasted Orkney Red [...]

Madeleine McCann/Laura Palmer

Watching last night’s Panorama program on the disappearance of four year-old Madeleine McCann, I became aware at least twice that the program makers were using, as a soundtrack , the haunting theme that composer Angelo Badalamenti produced for David Lynch’s television epic Twin Peaks.
Lynch’s series, as you may remember, deals with an FBI agent’s attempt [...]

The Strike Gets Viral

As you might expect, members of the the Writers Guild of America, West are putting their talents to create some pretty powerful communications material while engaged in their dispute with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. I particularly like these three videos from YouTube. And what a great way to get the viral [...]

Judith Regan Sues HarperCollins

The publishing world loves a good soap opera – see, as proof, my recent piece about the current PFD debacle – and here is our next instalment. The larger-than-life Judith Regan, erstwhile publisher of the eponymous HarperCollins imprint, is suing her former employer for $100m. Judith also has to cope with the [...]

First Sight of The Joshua Files

The children’s publishing world is amazingly creative about book design, but I’ve rarely seen such a stunning book jacket as Scholastic ’s extraordinary cover for the hugely-anticipated THE JOSHUA FILES by MG Harris. This meeting, last week, was the first time I saw it in the [...]

The War on Boyhood

Tonight’s “Panorama” programme discloses that thousands of British children with “behavioural problems” are being prescribed anti-psychotic drugs with dangerous side effects.
The powerful tranquillisers, designed to treat psychosis and schizophrenia in adults, are often being used to calm children who are simply “hyperactive”.
The situation is even worse in the States (and it will get worse here [...]

L’été se meurt…

It’s clearly Autumn here in London town. two photos from Green Park, just off Piccadilly…

Running On Empty

I mentioned the concept of “Peak Oil” – which is getting more mainstream media coverage now – in a earlier post.  Here, not for the statistically faint-hearted, is an interesting debate on exactly where we are now (no-one can be certain) and where we might be in a few short years.  This latest statistical work [...]

Conspiracy Theory

In 1933, a group of American businessmen (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell House & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.  So they instigated a coup.  Their treasonous plottings were aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the [...]

Perfidy!

“When I arrived at the company in August there had already been two offers for the business in the region of £8m. The agents having sold their business to CSS Stellar for £12m were offering in the region of £4m and taking whatever persuasive measures they could, including mass resignations, to ensure that CSS had [...]

Neat Xmas Present?

Using the power of the internet, Kiva is a website that lets you loan money (very small amounts of money by Western standards) to small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can “sponsor a business” and help the world’s working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the [...]

Quo Vadis, Miss Snark?

I’ve always rather slyly admired Miss Snark, the hard-bitten, hard-drinking and altogether hard nameless NY literary agent who has constantly blogged for these past two years.  What with one thing and another, I hadn’t looked at her blog for several months – and was saddened to see that she’s closed it, as of 20th May [...]