Leatherbound Hidebound Competition

Just  a link today to this article what I wroted in the Independent on Sunday, summarising my views on bookshops.

Also and moreover, there is a competition on to win a leatherbound copy of The Elements of Eloquence. There are only twelve of these in the world, and I have two of them. If that weren't enough you also get £20 of book tokens. All you have to do is to tweet a photograph of The Unknown Unknown in front of an independent bookshop and add the hashtag #IBW2014. You may do this any time until the end of August.

By the way, the origin of the word hidebound is that if cattle (or humans) are underfed, their flesh becomes very tight on them, so tight that they have difficulty moving. Thus a cramped and unmoving mind has hidebound attitudes.

The Unknown Unknown

The Unknown Unknown is out today. So scamper down to your nearest independent bookshop and buy a copy. It's only £1.99.

For myself, I'm off to give a talk in Wisley in Surrey at 3pm.

On Tour with George Villiers Duke of Buckingham

To business. The Unknown Unknown comes out in independent bookshops at the end of next week, enticingly priced at £1.99. I think it comes out in other bookshops and things in September. To celebrate I shall be doing a little tour. The dates are as follows:

Saturday 28th June - RHS Garden Wisley in Surrey
Tuesday 1st July - Jaffé & Neale, Chipping Norton
Wednesday 2nd - Foyles Charing Cross Road for the Great Bookshop Debate
Thursday 3rd - Mostly Books, Abingdon
Friday 4th - Red Lion Books, Colchester
Saturday 5th - David's Bookshop, Letchworth

Do come along and say hello.

Last week I did a small, private tour of my own commemorating my favourite London street namer: George Villiers Duke of Buckingham.

George Villiers Duke of Buckingham owned a very valuable bit of land just off the strand next to Charing Cross. In 1672 he sold it to developers, but he made a condition of the sale that his name be commemorated for ever in the streets.

So there was George Street. The name has since been treacherously changed to York Buildings, but George Court remains. Here's proof.

But that wasn't enough for George Villiers Duke of Buckingham. He wanted his surname out there too. And so, running from Charing Cross to Embankment:

Which all Londoners know to be the home of Gordon's wine bar. But that wasn't enough for him, he wanted the Duke bit out there too. So the made Duke Street. Unfortunately this is now called York Buildings, but it was there once. And then he wanted Buckingham Street, and he got it.

But none of this is what makes me love the chap. So far, it's just been a little bit egotistical. That's all. Nothing really fun. George Street, Villiers Street, Duke Street, Buckingham Street. I can almost see him pointing out to the urban planners that his name was not, absolutely not, George Villiers Duke Buckingham.

Oh no.

His name, and the world had better remember this, was George Villiers Duke OF Buckingham, goddammit. Never forget the Of. And hence the best street name in London. A name so good, that even though the philistines at Westminster Council have changed it, they still have to keep the original mentioned on the sign.

Here is a photo of me at the end of my pilgrimage, my tribute to a man who cared enough to preserve his own prepositions. Here is me in Of Alley.

Those tour dates again:

Saucers

Intergalactic hollandaise

Just one of those very simple ones I'd never noticed: saucers were originally meant to contain sauce. It's so obvious once you see it, but I had never seen it before.

They've been used to support cups only since the early eighteenth century.

This also means that flying saucers are for huge, alien foodstuffs to be dipped into.

School - Holiday

School means holiday. Or, at least, it used to.

Back in Ancient Greece, the Ancient Greeks divided their ancient days between work and leisure. Work meant war-fighting, olive-oil-making, and pederasty. Leisure meant reading philosophy, discussing poetry, and pederasty. And the Ancient Greek word for leisure was skhole.

The Romans took up the word schola, which again meant a break from work, and again therefore implied a lecture or a bit of reading or something... well scholarly. And by the time the word had got into Old English as scol, it meant nothing else.

So school meant holiday.

A school of fish, by the way, is unrelated to the scholarly school, but closely related to shoal.

I shall be in Salisbury a week on Saturday (31st) talking to the wonderful David Marsh as part of the Salisbury Festival. More details and tickets are to be found here.

A plaice at a good school

So

So, just a link today to my article in The Telegraph on the use of the useless "so".

Deliberately Weighed

I'll say one thing for astrology, it means that absolutely everybody knows a little bit of Latin. Gemini are the twins, Capricorn is the goat, and Libra is the scales.

This means that when things are in equilibrium (or equi - librium) the scales are perfectly balanced. And it also means that when you have carefully weighed up an action, that action is therefore deLIBERate.

By extension, this ought to mean that anyone born between September 23rd and October 23rd was born deliberately.