Creative Accounting #613

Dan Brown = hide & seek + art gallery

WHY are these books so successful?

THEE

Meeting Kathelin Gray at BAFTA, friend of William Burroughs, with roots in Hippy San Francisco

A visit to Hatchards where I bought Robert Harris' novel about the Dreyfus affair

Finishing The One from The Other by Philip Kerr

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Sardines on toast



Working from home



Reading Paul Carr's new book Bringing Nothing to the Party - the true confessions of a new media whore (plopped on the doormat from Paul's publishers Orion while I was on hols - good remedy to the back-to-skool blues)

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Evening sun and summer shower - can't see a rainbow yet



Hitting 91 again



Reading Learning to love you more on the way home - with musical accompaniment - as recommended by Louise Brown

The Shelf of Honour

Ulysses - James Joyce
Tom Jones - Henry Fielding
Our Mutual Friend - Charles Dickens

Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
Riddle of the Sands - Erskine Childers
The Mystery of Edwin Drood - Charles Dickens
Kalooki Nights - Howard Jacobson
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
The Wanderers - Richard Price
Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

Review of 2007

Best Film:
The Lives of Others
Knocked Up
3:10 to Yuma

Michael Clayton
Into the Wild
There Will Be Blood
The Bourne Ultimatum
The Golden Compass
Charlie Wilson's War
In the Valley of Elah
Die Hard 4.0
American Gangster


Best TV:
Skins

Best Book:
The Song Before it is Sung - Justin Cartwright
Life Class - Pat Barker
The Ghost - Robert Harris

Best Play:
The 39 Steps (Criterion)

Best Albums:
We'll Never Turn Back - Mavis Staples
Twelve - Patti Smith

Best Single/track:
Radio Nowhere - Bruce Springsteen & the E St Band
Ruby - Kaiser Chiefs
Patti Smith - Smells Like Teen Spirit

Best Gig:
1) Madcap's Last Laugh - Syd Barrett tribute at the Barbican
2) Patti Smith - Twelve Songs tour at the Roundhouse
3) The Rolling Stones - last night of their Bigger Bang tour at the O2
4) John Martyn - Solid Air at the Albert Hall

Best Exhibition:
1) Antony Gormley at the Hayward
2) Robert Capa and Gerda Taro at the IPC, New York

Best Sports Event:
1) England beating France in Rugby World Cup Semi-final in Paris
2) Start of Tour de France in London

Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Reading a murder mystery set in le Marais (my favourite part of Paris - visited en famille for the first time just a few weeks ago) - and bought at Felony & Mayhem in Greenwich Village, New York last week



Getting better - my ankle injured playing rugby yesterday



Approaching launch of Picture This

Striking gold - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Winning the second ever RTS (Royal Television Society) Innovation Award with Big Art Mob - there were only 6 and one went to Flash Video (as in the whole web video technology by Adobe) - enjoyed the experience with the whole team from all the small partners and my other half



Winning the London Design Festival (Y design) People's Choice Award with Empire's Children - two in a day, that was special



Starting an Agatha Christie - 4.50 from Paddington (in a beautiful facsimile 50s edition) - on the day the queen reopened St Pancras - I do love stations

Thought for the Day

"books are doors"
Jeanette Winterson
on Radio 4 this morning

City Lights - today's Happiness Experiment entry

Getting home - a gentle night breeze and swaying roses in the backstreets



Having my photo of City Lights bookstore in San Francisco selected by a guidebook



Chatting to N + D on the phone - about guitar, skipping and stuff