Arthur, Harold - and The Move

I've been listening to Arthur Conan Doyle's letters to his mother on Radio 4 in the mornings. I'm sure he would have enjoyed blogging - his letters are so natural and normal. He talks about decorating his house and having a great party, and enjoying reading Pride and Prejudice for the first time. He sounds a kind son too - his letters are very affectionate. As for Sherlock, he kills him off without a second glance - but of course, we know he's going to have to bring him back to life again.


Laura of HagsHarlotsHeroines, (http://www.hagsharlotsheroines.com/index.asp) has accepted my piece on self-publishing and this will come out later in the autumn, followed at some stage by a review of The Fruit of the Tree. It will be interesting to see how it comes out.

A good Goldenford (www.goldenford.co.uk) meeting last night, with lots of productive thoughts. Our local Waterstone's is now stocking all our books, so that's good news in sales' terms. Where we come unstuck is publicity, so we'll all have to keep working on that. Despite what they say, not all publicity is good publicity. I listened to Tony Blackburn talking about the record Watching Flowers in the Rain, which was a huge success. Apparently, the publicity person linked it in with a card showing a defamatory cartoon of the PM of the time, Harold Wilson and his secretary, and circulated it. When HW sued for libel, the judge decreed that all royalties from the song should go to a charity. The four young men, The Move, whose song it was, got nothing, and at the time, had no conception of its popularity - that it would still be being played forty years on - nor of the many hundreds of thousands of pounds that they were losing. Rather a sad story, as the libel was really nothing to do with them, and they were young and naive at the time.

M has just appeared bearing a box of Ferrero Rocher - not just the original sort but with two extra varieties - one dark and one white with coconut - I didn't like that one, but the dark one is very nice. No nut in the centre, either, just chocolate. Hmm, chocolate covered chocolate - always goes down well with me. No of course we haven't forgotten our respective diets. A friend brought them to us, when he came for a meal - and, of course, we have to eat them.