Happy New Year



Well a relatively quite combined birthday (21 again, thank you) and Hogmanay for me this year. Perhaps a sign of aeging, but I can be less and less bothered with either birthdays or New Year these days. Glad I chose not to go to the Princes Street huge bash this year - between the cold rain and the howling wind it wouldn't have been too nice. Then next day I found most of it was cancelled because of the weather anyway. Caught the organiser Peter Irvine on the TV news. Not my favourite person. he also writes Scotland the Best, a guide book. Every time a new edition comes out he comes into our store and lot sof others and hassles the poor fucking booksellers over how many they have in stock, where they are displayed etc etc. I've had this kind of shit from several authors over the years and they are all wankers. I've worked with a shed load of writers over the years, from little-known locals to the bestsellers of the land and usually got on well with most, but people like Irvine piss me off. Especially since his new edition comes out just a few weeks before Xmas when, gee, I dunno, perhaps the booksellers have a lot of other things on their minds? He does this for every new edition. He comes in and bitches to poor, undepraid booksellers who make less in a year than he does in a month about his fucking book. Never ocne has he come in and thanked us for all the many copies of his bloody book we've sold over the years. Tosser. So I was quite happy to watch him squirm on the news explaining why thousandsa had to be disappointed on Hogmanay. Yes, it is petty of me, so what?



Anyway, a quiet time, just me and my mates Gordon and Melanie. Mel cooked us dinner which was yummy and guzzled with some champagne. Which was on top of the champers I had at lunch time for my usual birthday breakfast. Normally I have Pop Tarts with my breakfast champange but this year the local supermarket let me down on the hot, toasty brekkie treat front, having only choccie ones in stock. Now I like th choccie ones, but with champagne for breakfast you need the strawberry Pop Tarts. Don't want to look as if I have no class after all. Then round to Gordon's place for lots of drinks and to watch some films and yes, more champagne at the Bells. Then some Ardbheg and some more wine and champers... Gee, I haven't drunk this much champagne in... Well, weeks. But that was freebies at a publisher's do. Forgot how quickly the bubbles go to you head. It must be the bubbles, it wasn't the amount imbibed, or the beer, wine and whisky also guzzled...