Dimanche 11 Novembre

On Saturday there was an enor,ouse order of books that had to go to a new clothing store on thje Champs Elyses. These were ordered by the shop simply to provide a chiq English ambiance to their high end Le Topshop…

…spent my shift working with a volenteer called Jethro, boxing books and taking them down the stairs till, you guessed it, we went for a drive in the van. No jazz this time, alas… …chat about Joyce, Ted Hughes ment the job was done in what felt like no time. Also Sylvia got us some decadent sandwiches and a pecuniary reimbursment which we spent in the pub afterwards…

…discussed liofe, abortion, fatherhood, art as life and vice-versa: propper poncy philosophical drinks chat. I headed back to the shop, picking up a pizza and some deliciouse xcheap wine en route (French for ‘ on the way’)…

…half way through my dinner when the dog had dihorea all over the floor. The stench was almost, but not quite as bad as James’ porta potty…

…shortly after this Patrick, Jethro and Alice swung by and we headed round the corner to a bar called Oubliette to listen to some jazz. I was expecting this:

It was decent jazz, but I was charged 12 euro for a beer. NEVER BUY BEER IN FRANCE…

..returning to the shop I was greeted by Laura and (C/K)Krista and her brother. Laura and Krista are writing a book on S&Co and wanted to try out the Tumbleweed experiance. They were excelent chat, and indeed I ended up talking and drinking with them until about half four in the morning…

…recovered from my hangover with the aid of a deliciouse eclair and later had some roquefort and wine…

…reorganised biography, some really interesting stuff including memoirs from one Simon Gough of his time with this uncle (Robert Grqves) in Majorca…

…going to the tea party… I had written a short poem about sleeping in the bookshop which I think was well received, at the end Saskia asked me to play them Dragonflies which went down very well indeed…

…sqt out the front of the shop with Patrick, Saskia, Alice and a few others. There were some Burns books on the table so I read the, Tam O’Shanter & To A Louse… …shutting up the shop early… … type up some lit crit (who’d have thought) I’ve been working on concerning a passage in “Far From The Madding Crowd.”

To,8s Guide To French Keyboqrds

If ever you have the oppertunity to avoid using a French keyboard, I recommend you take hold of it with both hands. I’ve just written this post on one and I’m ready for murder, and I don’t mean of the Agatha Christie variety. What pretentiousely parenthetical nation makes the comma easyer to press than the full stop? What has the letter M done to offend them that they ostracise it to the extreme right? And is all this arsing around on the left hand side of the board just for the purposes of making it spell something other than QUERTY?

So the rules are as follows:

1 When you think you need to hit shift for punctuation DON’T – you’ll get a number

2 Learn to despise and cease using the letter ‘M’

3 The € key is located on the letter E. I’ve only just noticed this after what was preciousely 10 minutes spent in futile searching.

4 Always write in the present or future tense: ‘was’ is a bugger to type on a aerty keyboard

( Zen qll else fqils; revert to typing qs though you zrere on qn English keyboqrd qnd hope the ,eqning shines through