Certainly sir. And garlic, too. And a box of recipe cards from the fabulous Ganapati south London south Indian kitchen.
A customer asks me, picking up a copy of Legend of a Suicide by David Vann: I've ordered a copy of this from the shop down the road and they've 'phoned to tell me that it's arrived, but I could just buy it from you now. What should I do?
I think you should buy it from me, I say. (And then later, I will round up my kids and we will go down to their shop and point at them through the window and shout, Losers, Losers!! And, How wide do you want the goal! How wide do you want the goal!)
Or perhaps I didn't.
Today's special word is, to mark the occasion of Crystal Palace V Middlesborough at Selhurst Park this afternoon, and in honour of , so I am told, one of the nicest men to ever put on an Eagles top, SOUTHGATE. Say the word at the counter today and tomorrow and get a 10% discount on any purchase excepting Book Tokens and some special orders. If the Eagles manage to win by 2 clear goals, I'll even make it 20%.
Thank you for reading.
Fairplay to Reinkarnation Books for re-publishing Hitler Needs You by Jack Trevor Story, an extract from the back cover of which, is reproduced here.
The book is the first in a trilogy written in 1970 and set in 1934, featuring the adventures of 16 year old Horace Spurgeon Fenton, factory apprentice.
Is it any good? See above.
Part of our special 3 for 3 promotion.
Question, he says, you used to have all your cards along the left-hand wall, didn't you?
No, I say. Never. Never had our cards along the left-hand wall.
Pah! he says.
I look at my watch. Although it is only just past mid-day, he is drunk. Very drunk. I have some sympathy with this - for a large part of the 1980s I worked in publishing.
I've got the wrong shop haven't I? He sways, before hanging on to my display stand and a copy of Diary of a Wimpy Kid Dog Days.
Yes, I say. You have.
He blinks at me.
You want the shop three doors along, that's the place with all of its card along the wall, I say, (mentally adding, and the display of Charlie and Lola paperbacks) wondering briefly what kind of havoc he could cause in a shop that sells girly dresses and incense and which describes itself as 'on budget and on trend'. Plenty,I would have thought.
You're more of a...he says.
Bookshop, I say.
Books, he says, looking at the book in his hand, and sighs. I read a book in nineteen-seventy-three, he tells me... It disturbed me... and I haven't read one since... Not one.
WE HAVE FINALLY moved house. Having been one of the East Dulwich pioneers from the days when the only lively thing about Northcross Road was the school (long since converted into bijou dwellingettes), and Lordship Lane boasted a Co-op, four butchers, its own dole office, a wild west saloon bar, brothel and public gibbet (okay so I exaggerated about the butchers, there were only three), we have relocated to a leafier suburb where you can actually park outside your own house. True, we are now also ring-fenced by road works which means that the only way the kids get to school on time is by hot air balloon (which drongo was it that decided that every hill in South London should be dug up simultaneously? Ah, that'll be a collective noun of drongos). Meanwhile, not unlike the bargain tins with no labels scenario, we are up to our necks in boxes without a clue as to what each one contains - could be crockery, could be cat food.
I love my customers, especially when they want to play. One of my favourites has just sent me this with the following message.
I carved a pumpkin with a picture of a crow on a telegraph pole for Halloween and thought you might find it vaguely amusing!
It is, I am sure you will agree, a work of bloody genius.
Happy Halloween.
Public service announcement: There is a fantastic Italian food market across the road from the shop today and tomorrow. Really worth paying a visit.