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7 May

I've been very lazy in blogging for the last week. The weather is too good, for one, plus I've been giving talks in bookshops around the country. Last night I was in Leeds, waffling to a small crowd in a branch of Borders, when someone asked me the question I've been expecting at every other Borders talk I've given, but have somehow never received before: how come you're talking in this chain bookshop then, if you're so smugly anti-corporate?

Which is an entirely fair question. The answer, simply, is that I'm doing it for the same reason I published my book with a major publisher owned by a nasty multinational (Viacom) - I want to get the message of the book out as widely as possible, and I want it to reach people who haven't already heard it. In my judgement, it's a better way of changing things than being super-ethical, publishing with a tiny non-corporate house, refusing invitations to talk in chain stores and selling just a few hundred books to people who agree with me anyway.

Naturally the money, fame and glory is better this way too. How else would I afford the upkeep of both my 500-acre estate in Oxfordshire and my Mayfair penthouse, not to mention my fleet of Bentleys? Not through an advance from AK Press, that's for sure.

But enough of this special pleading. On another matter entirely, here is an unbelievable story I came across today in an American newspaper. I suggest you strap yourself into your chair before you read it. Warning: this is not a spoof. Really.

Posted by paul at May 7, 2004 05:11 PM

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