Books are coming home....

Well that's another West Kent Book Fair out of the way! It went alright at Tonbridge School on Sunday but, as one regular commenter on this blog mentioned, quite a few people clearly stayed at home to make good use of a dry Sunday to get some gardening and home maintenance done. It always slightly surprises me that out of the 2 million or so people in West Kent, only a few hundred turn up for the fair. Having said that it always seems to be the right few hundred people, mainly book collectors. They will travel far and wide whatever the weather in search of those illustrious first editions. Book collecting is not a bad idea in the current economic climate either; why put your money in a bank to earn half a percent interest, if you're luck, when you can enjoy hunting for and then owning some rare and beautiful, cloth and leather bound volumes which, more often than not, appreciate in value quite significantly over the years. Rare books don't become less scarce with time do they? Have I convinced you to put your money in books and to come along to the next book fair in October? Or in the meantime there's always a visit to Mr. Books in Bank Street! To coin a phrase from the famous football song: after 10 years of internet books are definitely coming home...

West Kent Book Fair in Tonbridge on Sunday....

At the risk of harping on about this event a bit too much and lapsing into the pit of using this blog as an advertising vehicle for my own businesses, which is not really intended most of the time, there is a book fair at Tonbridge School this Sunday from 10am to 4pm. I won't say another thing about it except to say if you want to go click here to find out the full details and for directions to the event....

What's occuring in Tonbridge?

Well half the attic wall fell down onto the pavement to the side of Silvermans Jewellers on the corner of the High Street and Bank Street, near my bookshop. Lucky there was no one underneath, parking their bike or something! It caused a hell of a clatter and could have killed some one, or at least very seriously injured them. That was yesterday afternoon and I must say the Police and council repair men were very swiftly on the scene to clean up the large mess of wood, plaster and bricks which had rained down (narrowly missing my shop sign I might add!) and to ensure nobody walked underneath. So credit where it's due. Meanwhile I'm putting the finishing touches to the organising of the West Kent Book Fair which, if you didn't know already and you are interested enough to come and have a browse, is this Sunday from 10 till 4. There's quite a bit to do in telling the Tonbridge School porters where to put the tables, catering equipment, etc. Then there's the late cancellations and bookings from the book dealers to field. And you thought it just happened! The weather forecast, thankfully looks fine, even a bit sunny, which is good and also quite unusual as it has rained, snowed and rained on the day of the previous three fairs. Business in the shop is quiet at the moment, lunch time and another iffy day weather wise never helps. The high street is quiet and relatively traffic free ahead of the jams which will undoubtedly take place in about an hours time when all the schools kick out. Shortly followed by the office workers going home for their teas. What's occuring in your part of Tonbridge? Anyone out there?...

Planning for change in Tonbridge?...

Last night I went to the Civic Society's monthly meeting at the Angel Centre to hear what Steve Humphrey had to say. Steve has got some fancy title but basically he's in overall charge of planning matters in Tonbridge (and let's not forget Malling.) He and his team have a large say in what buildings go and which don't go in our town. Many of the decisions he takes effect Tonbridge not just right now but for future generations too. He ran through the main developments under consideration at present and they include the Botany area, which has just had a major and rather hideous in my opinion, planning application rejected, West Kent College's new building, which is a £70 million project, large in anyone's book; and then there was Tonbridge School's new sports and media centre, the Riverside Centre, with its 11 storey church tower and the list went on. Many of these developments could change the skyline of Tonbridge for good, and it is slightly worrying, but also a bit exciting, that there is no cap on the height of a new building in the town; each case is taken on it's own merits according to Steve. It has to be inkeeping with the town and it's overall strategic plan and it has to be, to use Mr. Humphrey's phrase, fit for purpose. So in other words it's completely down to the imagination of the developers and the discretion of the handful of, probably overstretched, workers in the planning department at the council. We are pretty much in their hands. There have been a few notable exceptions where the voices of the townsfolk have been heard when they've objected to large projects, such as Oracle's 15 storey tower block development, but these instances are few and far between. The civic society in Tonbridge seem to have their heart very firmly in the right place, even if they are by nature a rather genteel pressure group, but is that enough? The town it seems is at a crossroads in it's development, and the recession, by the way will only slightly delay the final outcome: will Tonbridge stay as a quaint little one street town hanging on to it's market town past? Or will it embrace change and not stand in the way of developers, who may have spotted its potential to develope into something much more significant? Next time you're down that way take a look at the vast acres of space around the Angel Centre, Botany, the railway car parks and imagine how it would look with a huge shopping centre and 15 or twenty story flats and offices above. Ask yourself do you like what you see....

Famous folk of Tonbridge and beyond....

TonbridgeBlog has covered "Famous People of Tonbridge" before so I won't babble on about Colin Cowdrey and E.M. Forster or even Eliza Acton and, dare I claim it, Jane Austen. But I did find out the other day that apparently the famously rotund dry commedienne, Jo Brand, of QI and other programmes fame, is the most famous Twiglet of all time. (Inappropriate nickname, as I'm sure Jo will admit!) That is to say she went to Tunbridge Wells Girls Grammar School, TWGGS for short (geddit?) I know that's not quite Tonbridge, but where's the TunbridgewellsBlog to tell you about it? So someone's got to mention these things!...

Lost Powder Mills of Leigh book signing at Book Fair....

Anyone interested in the excellent new local history book, The Lost Powder Mills of Leigh by Chris Rowley, which I have had to restock twice already will be able to buy a signed copy or three at the West Kent Book Fair next Sunday. Chris will be there from about 10-30 am to around midday....

Twittering on and book buying....

Too busy selling books and sorting out storage and clearing out stock to make way for new stock to be bothered much with blogging at the moment. Anyway I've discovered Twitter.com! The great thing about that is it's always short and sweet, as you have to say what you want to say within 140 characters max, unlike here where I could just ramble on for pages and in any case how many people are actually reading it, judging by the comments not that many and I can't actually work out the number of page views since TonbridgeBlog converted to Google blogger; I know it was around 2,000 hits a day on the old site, but was that the same person visiting 2,000 pages or was it 2,000 people visiting only one page each; probably somewhere in the middle, but where in the middle? Who knows! I did say that you can ramble on for pages and that you should try twitter didn't I. Anyway what I would like to know is what brings people out book buying. I've been a book seller now for 5 years and I still haven't worked that out. If it's raining they stay in or go to Bluewater, if it's sunny they take a trip to the coast or do some gardening. Maybe what I need is a dull, but not too cold day, with no hint of rain or wind, when Bluewater is closed and there are no other sales on and the internet happens to have crashed that day! Also what are John Adams playing at? Are they trying to keep the good folk of Tonbridge guessing as to are they closing or aren't they. First they advertise "Closing Down Sale" and tell everyone that they're closing at the end of March. Then they take the signs down and tell people they can now order new books but they're not restocking. The good thing for Mr. Books is that they are driving people to my shop to order new books as well as top quality secondhand books where, incidentally, they will find friendly service all year round! I have it on fairly good authority (I spoke to the owner, who curiously is no longer John Adams, but a London bookseller called Doug) that they are open for another six months while they flog off the old stock and then it'll be bye bye Tonbridge. So I find myself in the quite nice position of being the only independent bookseller in the town. All I need now are customers to stop buying their books on the internet and for WH. Smiths to follow Woollies and go bust and perhaps a bigger shop!...

Free Tonbridge Press....

I was speaking to my mole at the Courier yesterday and it seems that they are having big problems over at Courier HQ. In last weekend's paper you may have noticed that the management sneaked in an announcement about job cuts and more office closures and that they are folding the Focus free sheet as of next week (not that anyone will miss that three minute read!) It seems that there is more to it and that the office in Sevenoaks for the Chronicle is to be closed and much of the sub editing, design and backroom staff are to be moved to new offices in Chelmsford. So the Sevenoaks Chronicle is to be written from Tunbridge Wells and designed and edited in Essex. Ditto the Tonbridge edition of the Kent and Sussex Courier. (Make that the Kent, Sussex and Essex Courier and the way they are going on Surrey, Suffolk and Hampshire!) Surely this has all gone a step too far; how can these papers be local papers any more. Don't local papers need a constant ear to the ground in the town which they're reporting on. Even the best of their reporters won't be able to achieve truely local stories of any depth by holding a weekly "surgery" in the library. It just won't work. What they'll end up doing is going more and more down the well trodden route of relying on stories coming to them. By the nature of things these stories tend to be PR led. Have a read through the so-called "stories" in the paper (any paper for that matter) and see how many of them mention some company, charity, event or organisation. That usually is the main source of the story; quite a scarey prospect if you think about it. It's called lazy journalism, they get their stories by sitting on their backsides and the PR companies feed them information to get exposure for their clients. It's not how it should work, but the reality is that this is how it increasingly does work and the Courier's short termist strategy only serves to exacerbate this process. TonbridgeBlog has said this before but isn't it time to bring back the Tonbridge Free Press? Actually the Courier group still own that brand name but I'm sure they'll sell it to someone for a few pence. After all they clearly have no further use for it!...

West Kent College....

I was over at West Kent College yesterday afternoon and, although the place is just a huge building site at the moment, I couldn't help but think that the college will be amazing when it's finished. Unfortunately that isn't likely to be until the back end of 2011, but it's going to be worth waiting for I reckon; after all they are spending a staggering £70 million on it's construction. I've seen the plans for the frontage of the new building and, from memory, they looked very impressive and modern, which may not please everyone but should at least make the amateur architects among us look twice. There will undoubtedly be more complaints about parking problems and the like, but I'm sure that most will be ironed out with sensible provisions for cyclists and pedestrians combined with good transport links into the town. I sort of pity the students who are there now though as they get all the grief of the building works and, most at least, are unlikely to still be there when the work is completed. So they don't get any of the benefit. That said, what a fantastic place it will be to leave for many future generations of students....

Boxed dogs!...

Here's another thing that tickled me today (well it is red nose day) This ad appeared in today's Courier in the classifieds under Books and Magazines: Dog Collection: Magazines and dogs (still boxed) £50.
I just hope that they've had the good sense to cut some breathe holes in those boxes!

Red noses....

Even an old cynic like me couldn't help help but chuckle to myself when I saw this outside the Humph Bean pub this morning. I'm pretty sure that the owner of the vehicle in the pic was inside, taking advantage of the all day cheap beer and, no doubt, developing a red nose of a different kind, but that's another story!...

West Kent Book Fair coming up....

I've just sent out a press release to all the local newspapers and radio stations that I can think of. There are probably more which I haven't thought of. If any one is interested it's on Sunday March 29th. In fact you may as well see the whole press release:

Hundreds of book collectors are set to descend on Tonbridge for the West Kent Book Fair which takes place on Sunday March 29th, 2009 in the magnificent urroundings of Old Big School hall, Tonbridge School. There will be around 25 booksellers coming from all over the South East and beyond to sell books as diverse as bargain paperbacks to rare out of print collectable books and modern first editions. There will also be postcards and ephemera on sale. As well as being a book collectors' paradise the event is very family friendly with a childrens area for childrens stories, the chance to meet local authors and refreshments available. Chris Rowley, author of "The Lost Powder Mills of Leigh" will be at the fair from around 10-30am to 12pm to sign copies of his book. Visitors will also be able to take part in a new literary boardgame, called Bookchase. The fair will be open from 10am to 4pm. Please contact the organiser Mark Richardson at MR. Books Bookshop for further details on 01732 363000 or look at the web site www.mrbooks.co.uk for further details and directions to the book fair. (ends)

Did I leave anything out?...

Silence is Golden....

The Perfoming Rights Society, the PRS for short, have sent me several letters regarding the playing of public performances. Hang on a minute I thought to myself on receipt of the second letter (the first went straight in the bin) I can't even play a note let alone do a performance! The PRS are in the news today: they're having a slightly bigger dispute with the mighty Google about the licence required to play music clips on YouTube. It seems that the society is getting a bit greedy: they're also in the middle of another dispute, this time with Kwik Fit over the rights of the Kwik Fit fitters to play their own vibes on their own radios at work. The issue seems to rest on whether more than one person, especially customers, but also work colleagues, can hear the music. The PRS are claiming that the car repair shop chain owes them over £200,000 in back dated fees. In the case of Mr. Books book shop I would be required to pay a licence fee of £73.60 a year for background music, such as a radio, and £136.70 to be able to "perform" music from cds and the like. Presumably that includes from an i-pod or mp3 player (Ididn't ask them) It seems that dear little Mr. Books would have to pay the same as other Tonbridge shops the size of say Halfords or WH Smiths. I sugested to them that should I wish to play music in my shop then surely it should be based on the estimated number of people to visit in a week or month. No they said, it's based the square footage of the shop, with a large minimum threshold, regardless or how many customers you get in a week. (So long, that is, there's more than just me listening.) They made me feel sorry for their artistes and asked me did I realise that 90% of their musicians only earn royalties of less than £5,000 ( a well used line I suspect) I learn today from an article in The Times online that I should feel less sorry for them since the highest paid director of the PRS was paid £425,000 last year! and they raked in over £600m in royalties by, mainly it seems, hastling with ever more agressive tactics, small businesses like mine. So I shall contunue to listen to the radio on my lap top computer (there's another grey area) but not radio one or two for me. Just as well I love listening to Radio 5 Live and occasionally Radio 4 and other talk stations isn't it. But hold up Radio 4 is now playing Jazz with Kenneth Clarke (isn't he meant to be bring the Labour Party down not drooling over the sounds of Charlie Parker et al?) But still there's always good old silence, that can be golden too....

Good intentions....

I wonder how the new green grocers, Bishops of Tonbridge, is doing; I must admit that I've only bought one banana from them when they first opened; and it was a very nice banana. This despite my good intentions of going there for my weekly fruit and veg shop. You know what they say: The road to hell is paved with good intentions! The trouble is you have to make a special effort, whereas you're sort of in Sainsbury's or Somerfield anyway. Lazy I know, but I wonder if other people, if they're honest, feel the same. I hope they do well and I'll continue to have good intentions to shop there....

Bag off Bartram!...

Drivers in Tonbridge have the increasing number of chasis-breaking pot holes to contend with; now pedestrians have John Bartram and his bags to put up with. Don't worry Mr. Bartram we'll all side step your granny trollies if it helps you sell a few more bags and stuff. We retailers know how hard times are at the moment. Mr. Bartram, owner of the shop Allsorts of Golliwog Dolls on Tonbridge High Street, was unavailable for comment....

Ladies who don't do lunch....

Saw this down St John's Road a few days ago. An image pops into my head of a kick-boxing karate-chopping agressive woman taking on a genteel Gucci hand bag carrying lady-who-does-lunch!