All-Time Bestsellers

On Sundays, it is my job to produce a bestseller list from the previous week's sales at work. I thought I could employ some timesaving nous and I have come up with a long-term bestseller list that will serve for many weeks without having to be changed. This will give me more time to stare at the walls and think about shoe grip, chocolate body paint, Britney Spears' devolution into craziness, and other similarly important things. I had the help of a fellow staff member*, who suggested the categories to replace the more usual Fiction/Non-Fiction binary. Here it is, the Almost Perpetual Bestseller List:

METAPHORICAL
1. The Art of Hornet's Nests - Dalai Larsson
2. The Girl With The Happiness Tattoo - Dalai Larsson
3. 1001 Coming of Age Stories to Read Before You Die - Various
4. The Girl With The "Free Tibet" Tattoo - Dalai Larsson
5. Mastering The Art of French Cussing - Naughty Child

NON-METAPHORICAL
1. Eat, Prey, Leave - Hannibal Lecter
2. Apples, Acne and Cholera - Alexander Marquez Smith
3. He's Just Not That Into You (Or Your Desire For An Equal, Adult and Mutually Fulfilling Relationship) - Hugh Hefner
4. The Satanic Fishes - Salmon Rushdie
5. Don't Sweat The Small Stuff: Use Deoderant! - Patrick Suskind


*But obviously all the really funny ones are mine.

200-Mine: A Wrap-Up

Most Triumphant Moment of Traditional Gender Role Subversion I Witnessed:
My Cousin's two year old son throwing a tantrum, and subsequently being allowed to wear his younger sister's new pretty pink dress for about two hours on Christmas morning.

Best Text Message I Recieved:
Got the anchovies. Quit My job.

Best Actress in a Leading Role: Me. (who's surpirised??)
I could give myself this award many times over but I think my best performance was in continually finding different ways to avoid telling people who bought Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall that I got halfway through and gave up because I thought it was crap and boring... cut off my legs and call me Shorty if I didn't just sell a copy of that book in the middle of sneakily typing this at work!

Desalination: Not a Laughing Matter

I was looking forward to my trip to the desalination plant with Tallboy and his family because I agreed to go on the condition that I enjoy free reign to write up the experience in my blog.

Once at the plant, we all got to wear hardhats and flurescent vests and stamp about gravelly ground in steel capped boots while looking at pipes and holes in the ground but I can't make that sound especially humourous. Essentially, desalination plants are not very funny. At all. The best I can come up with is to accidently on purpose leave out the "L" from time to to time and spent the rest of the post discussing desalination pants.

Desalination pants use a process of "reverse osmosis". After the desalination pant we went to a winery for unch. It was very peasant.

"Adelaide: No Convicts and No Fruitfly"

I am gearing up for a very exciting trip down to the land of no convicts or fruitfly. Tallboy's family are going to take me to a desalination plant. Details to follow.

Mobile Guitar Players: On The Move

On the weekend, Tallboy and I saw another mobile guitar player, but this one was about 3 suburbs out from where I live so I am hopeful that it is a sign they are migrating away from me. Today, I saw a small child walking down the street with a cardboard box over her head. It filled my heart with joy to know that the very young are able to make their own fun without the use of guitars.

Wilderness Society People Are ANIMALS

Scene: King St, Newtown. Felix feels an overwhelming urge to re-visit her breakfast in reverse, so sits down on a low brick wall and takes some deep breaths.

Unidentified Male: "Are you OK?"

Felix: "Yeah, I'm fine".

Unidentified Male: "Have you heard of us before?"

Felix: [looking up to see unidentified male is holding a clipboard and wearing a Wilderness Society t shirt] "well actually I'm trying not to vomit so I guess I'm not ok"

At least that got rid of him.

Handy Hint For Paul Wilson

Hi Paul, you seem exactly like the type of guy who would google himself on a weekly basis so I have high hopes that you will stumble upon this blog and although I will have to forgo anonymity I think the sacrifice will be well worth it. First of all, I should clarify here that the Paul Wilson I am talking about is the author of that famous tract "The Little Book of Calm" (as featured in the first episode of Black Books when Manny accidently swallows one).

Paul, when you are in a shop, it really isn't necessary to try to impress the people who work there. Even if you are in a shop that sells a product you create, like if you are an author who finds himself in a bookshop. Generally, people in retail are not that interested in their customers (A good rule of thumb to remember is that people in the service industries are paid to be nice to you. This should clear up a lot of things).

Beyond the fact that I was already pre-disposed to not being all that interested or impressed by you (see above), your attempt was really, really abysmal. Asking me if Bryce Courtenay has a new book out only so that you can then drop into the conversation "oh, he didn't invite me to his launch. I wonder why that was" was very clumsy of you. Obviously, Bryce Courtenay thinks you are a nob of no consequence which is why he didn't invite you to his latest book launch. Name dropping authors is kind of a waste of time with booksellers, and when you name drop and then proceed to reveal that you actually barely know one another is... well... in the words of that famous philosopher, Shania Twain, "that don't impress me much".