No rush ..

 

 

 

 

 

I was paid rather a nice compliment the other day. A mate is reading my book 'Page 99, by Joe Bancroft.' "Have you finished it yet?" I asked. "Not yet," he replied. "I only read four pages a night." "Four? How come?" "Well," he said, "If I'm really enjoying a book, I don't want it to finish .."

Looks like others are enjoying it, too. The chart is my sales distribution for July, and I couldn't be happier. I just hope the Japanese sales are to English speakers, or it's going to be hard going!

 

 

Big in Japan ..

Well, what do you think of these bad boys?

A whole new range of T-shirts using my Joy Division photography!

I'm delighted to announce their launch, after months of planning and design. Not that I planned or designed, of course. That was all done by my friends at Lad Musician, a top-end fashion house based in Tokyo, Japan. This is the second time they've chosen my work to grace their garments, and I'm absolutely delighted ..

They're the real deal, too. Top quality printing on beautifully soft cotton, they feel great and look fantastic, even on a skinny bod like mine. How do I know? They sent me some samples, of course ..

 

The price? From about ￥12, 000 .. ! (Put it into a currency converter. It's not as bad as you think!) 

For the record ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've just done something I've not done for a long time .. I've bought a record.

Ok, it's actually a CD of course, and I ordered it from Amazon rather than rushing down to the local Virgin Megastore, but the thrill was the same as I dashed to my hi-fi to hear it for the first time. (And don't worry, I already realise how old I sound, what with my records and my CDs and my hi-fi, but I've always preferred to 'own' my music, rather than rent it from some anonymous cloud!) Incidentally, that reminds me of Ronnie and Nick, of Ames Records and Discount Records respectively - two blokes who guided my teenage musical tastes back in the late 1970s. Ronnie owned Ames - one of (Can you believe it?) three record shops in Eccles. He sold me a pink 12 inch version of The Rolling Stones' Missing You and gave me the promotional (almost) life-size cut-out advertising The Pretenders first album. Nick owned Discount Records in Sale and sold me everything from Dana to Nina Hagen with his wide hippy grin never far away ..

Record shops were irresistible back in the day. Whether it be for something you'd heard on the John Peel show, or seen on Top of the Pops, you just couldn't wait to get to one to buy it. I've spent a fortune on music over the years and, unlike a lot of my contemporaries, still have every single record I've ever bought. (And a turntable on which to play them, albeit a bit of an upgrade to my pictured 1970's music-centre!) ..

And the latest addition to my collection? In Times New Roman, by Queens of the Stone Age. I shouldn't have bothered ..