Goodbye 20th Century...

"Goodbye 20th Century" - That was the phrase that kept revolving through my mind as we packed up and left London for our new haven by the sea. Why? Christ, you should try being in my mind for a while - rather like a flea market or boot fair. All sorts of crap, some of it interesting, most of it rubbish. All I can say is that Goodbye 20th Century is the name of an album Sonic Youth produced that consists of cover versions of various avant-garde pieces of music. It's the kind of album I put on from time to time and see how long it lasts before my wife comes over and says something along the lines of "What the fu*k is this crap?" at which point I usually have to switch to Chet Baker radio or something...

But there it was like an unwanted Mantra, round and round. And now we've been here for a couple of months and despite occasional panics and the ridiculous fact of being a Fulham season ticket holder who no longer lives in London everything is kind of great. Dizzie Rascal (also newly relocated to Kent) put it sweetly in the Observer Magazine "It's quiet, it's cool." "It's still just about a London borough, I think."

I no longer own and run any bookshops. But I am reading plenty and enjoying it again. I'm also working in a bookshop - a brilliant, excellent, superb little place that I will tell you all about on or around October 1st when I start for real. So far I've just done a few days here and there but I've already met a customer from the Lower Marsh shop, down in Kent for the weekend. I am also writing intermittently. Maybe now the responsibilities of running a business badly have eased I might be able to go back to writing novels badly? We'll see. One thing's for sure. I'm not going to be shy about it like I always have been in the past. I'm going to post stuff up here.

Feel free to let me know what you think...(Gulp!)