The Demise Of The Book?

I read in the newspapers yesterday that John Locke, an insurance salesman and amateur writer from Louisville, Kentucky, has become the first self-publishing author to sell 1 million e-books via the Amazon Kindle electronic reader. I am not sure whether to applaud this of burst into tears. Of course, I wish Mr Locke every success with his writing but that apart, I wonder where we are going. John Locke has joined a select band of eight authors who have achieved in excess of 1 million sales via the Kindle e-book reader. The difference in his case is that he has never published in old fashioned book form and he doesn't have his own publisher and publicists. For each book sold at 70p on Kindle, he receives 25p a percentage return way beyond the expectations of any normal publication. If the average price of one of his books last year was 60p, he will have earned himself £150,000, which would be a staggering amount for 99% of authors. Of course, much of this was in the USA and we are still well behind them in terms of e-book sale. Nevertheless, Amazon have reported that in 2010 sales of e-books in the UK rose four fold to £16 million.

I have no problems with people reading books on the Kindle machine - it is much better than not reading books at all. But I still think of the Kindle and similar machines as handy devices to carry on commuter trains and the like. To settle down for a good read, I want an old-fashioned book. The trouble is that I am falling behind technology. There are many things I prefer to do the old way. Technology should be used to increase the range of options available, not as an excuse to eliminate something that happens to be inconvenient for some commercial organisation of other. I have a mobile phone - but I hardly use it. I like it to make essential phone calls when I am on the move. I do not need it for sending silly text messages or having pointless telephone conversations on matters so banal that accidental eavesdroppers - the tied audience - start to feel suicidal. I do not want cheque books to be phased out for the convenience of the banks. We have done far too much already for the convenience of the banks. I do not want to use DIY checkouts in supermarkets so they can cut back on staff. How long before supermarkets become warehouses and they tell us to get our own stuff off stacked up pallets?

But on books I have a problem because I love books. I have several thousand books in my home and storage is an increasing problem. But I do not want to get rid of any of my books. Some get a bit faded and tatty with age and, almost valueless, they have to be dumped. The rest I want to keep. I like a house to be full of books. Children brought-up in houses with no books do not do so well at school as those who are surrounded by books - although there are other factors in such variations. Recently, Newcastle University carried out a survey of new students over a period of 3 years and found that 25% of them had managed to get to the university without ever having read any book completely. I find this so bizarre that I wonder about the academic abilities of the people involved. Should these non-readers be in a university at all?

Over the last 30 years or so book shops have been disappearing from our streets. The primary reason is that mass selling books - popular fiction - are now sold by the supermarkets and on line at heavily discounted prices. Running a bookshop is now a recipe for financial failure. Even the second-hand bookshops have gone. They have lost out to Oxfam. Oxfam gets its books for nothing and has many unpaid staff. It is difficult for a specialist second-hand shop to compete with that. It is not so bad for the buyer - even if the choice in Oxfam is rather limited.

There is only one big chain specialist book shop left on the High Streets of Britain - Waterstones - and they are being sold off by the owner, HMV, a company with lots of other problems caused by on-line publishing and discount selling - in some cases to the point of zero. I hope all these shops don't disappear. I still like going poking about in book shops and record shops. I have fond memories of Foyle's book shop on the Charing Cross Road with its unrestructured Victorian layout, with all its nooks and crannies and the vast piles of books. I have spent many happy hours in there.

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The Rain Makers

Today is Sunday, 12th June 2011 and it's cold and raining. "Nothing odd about that," I hear you cry. After all, this is an English summer. Wimbledon starts in a week or so and we are already lining up Cliff Richard on the Centre Court to "entertain" the crowds in the event of rain. But there is more to be said. After the coldest winter since ohhhhhhh ........... 1694 or since 1963 — at least — we have had a very dry spring — at least, we have in the South East corner of England. Down here, it really has been dry and April was a wonderful month the length and breadth of England. Even Scotland was relatively dry and warm. In East Anglia hardly any rain has fallen since February — 15mm [or just over ½ inch if you prefer proper units instead of these continental things dumped on us by Napoleon Bonaparte] they tell us. And that's not enough to even keep the dust down. Meanwhile, in the North of Scotland, it has been tipping it down. On a single day last week, parts of Scotland got over 2 inches of rain. On Friday various parts of England were officially designated drought zones. This means that all kinds of thing like washing cars, watering gardens, etc are banned and water companies are granted considerable extra powers to enforce the restrictions. Southern Water has not yet imposed any restrictions but they are making noises about using bath water in the garden and switching off the sprinklers. Soon they too will impose a hose-pipe ban and other restrictions — as they have done so many times in the past. Here in Crawley we are moving into the annual pictures of Weir Wood Reservoir season, when we are treated to illustrations of the water level that is so disastrously low that we are but one week away from the stand-pipes on the streets. In fact the level of water in Weir Wood at the moment is at 79%. This follows the cold and wet winter which kept water level in this reservoir at 100% for over 3 months and even the very dry spring has not yet taken us to the serious shortage stage.
Next week there will be a meeting organised by government ministers and including "experts" on water supply as well as representatives of the water supply companies and, of course, the regulatory body Ofwat. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the drought and what can be done. At this moment, naturally, nothing can be done. At least this is a cheap solution. What we need, of course, is a real expert with a track record of success. The man we really need is the late Dennis Howell. Appointed by Harold Wilson in 1976 to deal with the serious drought over the whole country during the longest and hottest summer that anyone could remember, the minister brought everybody together, promised action and set off on a countrywide tour. Everywhere he went he was followed by rain. It rained and it rained and within a matter of a few months all was well. Lacking anyone with the proven rain making abilities of Mr Howell, as a country we need rather more prosaic solutions to the long on-going problem of water supplies. We are constantly urged to save water, to reduce the capacity of cisterns, not to water the gardens and so on. In recent times we have been told that the problems are those caused by global warming and that we must get used to reduced water supplies. For the most part these exhortations are based on complete nonsense. It may be that in the long term we will have a problem with rainfall on Britain but at this time, we do not. The primary cause of the problems with water supply in this country are incompetence by governments over many years.
I mentioned Weir Wood Reservoir above. This was built in 1953, just after the first houses had been built in Crawley — which is much the biggest town in North Sussex. But since then Crawley has grown to be a town with over 100,000 people with an international airport alongside — an airport that did not exist at all in 1953, yet now employs 35,000 people. Since the 1950s the population of England has risen from about 41 million to more than 50 million and it is still rising rapidly. An estimate only this last week has suggested that if current immigration trends and birth rates continue the population of Britain will increase by another 20 million by 2050. These are horrifying statistics. This country [England] is already over-crowded and particularly so in the south east. During the last fifty years little has been done to improve our water supply situation. The case of Weir Wood illustrates this well. I do not know if the planners when they started building Crawley envisaged that the population of the new town would ever exceed 100,000. I suspect that the answer is "No!" At the time, they estimated that one day, one family in four would own a motor-car and they were dramatically wrong with that. The fact is that our population is rising and, as we try to improve our standards of living, we demand more services. Water is a particularly severe problem only because it has been ignored for most of the last 50 years. The water system and the associated sewage system that we have now was installed by the Victorians when the population was less than half today's level. If that were not itself a recognition of the achievements of the Victorians, it is surely an indictment of most of the politicians since. Even when we are so often threatened with water restriction, the water companies admit that we lose 3.3 billion litres per day from our water supplies via leaks and the cause of this extra-ordinary leakage is the fact that the pipes are ancient, installed by the Victorians. In the 18th century it was common to complain about the state of the roads because not much repair work had been done since the Romans set them down in the 2nd century. The same logic lends itself to the excuses of the water companies. But, more, they say they would repair the leaks if the regulator Ofwat would let them spend more money. Of course, he stops them spending more money because he does not want rapid increases in water bills.
This country - the British Isles - has more than enough rain falling on it to guarantee every part of Britain has as much water as it could ever want. We collect a tiny proportion of the rainfall. As global warming possibly makes our climate subject to rather more extremes - heavy rain and serious flooding all over the place followed by long dry spells, hot weather and droughts — then we must organise water collection systems — reservoirs — to collect billions of gallons when rain is pouring down and water rushes down the mountains into the rivers and not have to bleat on about the shortages when there is no rain. The last major reservoir system that I can remember being built in Britain was the Kielder reservoir project in the 1970s that created the biggest man-made lake in Northern Europe and a 250 sq mile national park. There were many objectors at the time but the end result has been a marvelous wild life park, some grandiose scenery and a massive boost to water supplies in the north east. We need many more Kielder projects and we need to look at ducting [via the canals?] water from the north to the south east. I hope something more will come from this next week's meetings than more advice on saving water and blaming everything on climate change.
It is still raining — doing my garden a lot of good — and it is still cold — not so good,
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Fun At The Olympics - Again

As everyone of you who reads this blog will realise, I use it primarily to have a moan. My writing is a moan of frustration. I complain all the time about things that I can do nothing to change. It is the place of the eunuch in the history of civilisation. This is something that must happen to everyone at some time or other, but my primary frustration is that there is so, so much that is wrong that I can do nothing about. A local bureaucrat once asked me if I believed that I could run the local authority better than they did and was quite taken aback when I told her that I was damned sure that I could. Is this the arrogance of those permanently castrated by the realities of everyday politics? Everyone believes that they could do a better job of running the country but except at elections, we are ignored. But old age does give us some advantages.. We can remember the last time this or that daft idea was tried out - and it didn't work then either. Winston Churchill and Harold Macmillan warned politicians about ignoring the lessons of history but now it seems to be considered very fuddy-duddy to look back at history; doesn't fit the new dynamic image at all.

I have given my views on the Olympic Games several times but I am going to have another go after reading the latest news about the on-going fiasco. Even if the Olympic Games in London next year turn out to be a glorious success - in sporting terms and TV presentation - I will remain utterly opposed to the whole business on the simple grounds that it is such an insane waste of money. It will produce unnecessary extra congestion and crowds and will take-over our TV channels like nothing ever before, for weeks before and after the event. The question of cost is being obscured - as I always thought that it would - but the newspapers are now regularly referring to a cost to the taxpayers of £12,000,000,000 and private sponsors will contribute another £1,500,000,000. We are getting ever closer to my original estimate of £15,000,000,000+. I have written the numbers out in full to help illustrate just how absurd is the whole enterprise. How can anyone accept any decision to proceed with glorified school sports days at a cost approaching £1 billion per day????? This week has revealed ever increasing levels of absurdity - justified by the the chief organiser, Sebastian Coe, on all kinds of spurious grounds - but he lost the plot years ago. On the other hand, at the end of it all, when taxpayers have paid all the bills and everybody has packed up and gone home, he will be an exceedingly rich man. And, that, of course, is what it's all about. The Olympic Games provides another opportunity for the rich and the very rich to soak money out of ordinary unsuspecting punters.

The allocation of tickets for the games has been something of such extraordinary complexity that we can suspect management by either Franz Kafka or Lewis Carroll. It is a process that has boggled the mind with its labyrinthian complexities. Why is it so difficult to sell tickets? Apparently, British citizens can buy tickets from those allocated to other countries by just buying them like theatre tickets. But this week has produced some startling reports of how the London Olympic Organiser's system all works. First of all, in order to apply for tickets you had to register on an Olympic site and be in possession of a Visa card. No otter card or means of paying would be acceptable. There was no point in rushing down to the east end and offering them a cheque or a bag full of cash - neither would be accepted. There are many other credit cards, charge cards and debit cards available but, no, it had to be a Visa card. Why is this? Very simple. Visa is one of the corporate sponsors and they would only provide their sponsorship on the basis that all payments went through them. Then, anyone who registered an interest in buying tickets for any even had to wait for some weeks while the organisers selected the winners. As expected, more people applied for tickets for the popular events and fewer applied for the less popular events. Now, the organisers have deliberated and have allocated tickets - but not all the tickets. Many applicants in the UK - 250,000 - have been told that they will not get any tickets for any of the events. Those who have got tickets don't yet know what events they have got tickets for but the money has been taken from their bank accounts. Since the games only take place in 14 months time, these punters have given the organisers a vast free loan of some millions of pounds. A consideration of the names of some of the people who have failed to get tickets and some who have been presented with tickets free, gratis, for nothing, makes interesting reading. The Mayor of London applied for tickets for his family and friends but got none. The former Mayor, Ken Livingstone, got none either - and you may remember that he put in considerable efforts into getting the games to London in the first place. The Mayor will be allocated a fairly hefty batch of tickets anyway, but these have to be distributed around the political leaders of the various London Boroughs so that they can attend the various events. Some Borough leaders, I have to say, have been magnanimous in offering them to local people or charities. Some competitors have failed to get tickets for events in which they will be competing - including some, like Bradley Wiggins, who already have a collection of gold medals. There will be another round of ticket allocations and the people who failed first time around are urged to apply again. But note, only the expensive tickets will be available to popular events. Lord Coe urges people to apply for tickets to things like synchronised swimming and tiddly-winks - which he opines, are less popular. Of course for the main events - opening and closing ceremonies, men's 100m finals, etc. - more than half the tickets have already been allocated to sponsors, carpet-baggers and hangers on. Sepp Blatter and his gravy train mates at FIFA have been handed bunches of tickets and been promised chauffeur driven cars, 5 star hotels and 7 star entertaining at the events. Why? I have no idea but it is certainly in-line with FIFA behaviour. We'll do the same for you when it comes to the next World Cup. Many tickets have gone to the City of London - to the corporate sponsors and they will hand out tickets to the richest executives and investment bankers. They have a right to them - says the splendid Lord Coe - because it's the sponsors who are paying. No they are not; it's the taxpayers, rate payers and council tax payers who are paying for these games. No they are not, says the ludicrous life-peer. "Tax payers are providing for the reconstruction of the east end of London and providing stadiums and venues that will benefit us all for years to come." There is not a sausage of evidence to support this proposal. Every Olympic Games in modern times has provided the organisers with nothing but vast debts and empty stadiums that ultimately have to be abandoned or demolished. Even now, the use of the main Olympics 2012 stadium depends on it being turned into a smaller football stadium and used by West Ham FC - a football team who have already been relegated to the Championship division. This club is not over-endowed with money and is already telling the new manager, Sam Allardyce, that he will have only limited funds for new players. No doubt along the way they will hi-light the difficulties of moving from Upton Park and using the new stadium and will want some financial help - and it will have to be found. Other venues will be bailed out for ever.

You know it makes sense!

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Realities In The Premier League

A report published today by Deloitte tells us — as if we didn't know — that the wage bill in the English Football Premier League continues ever upwards. Everything we know about the super-rich in football as elsewhere in our economy, shows us how little they have been affected by the supposed credit crunch. This current report explains that everything about the Premier League is expensive. It generates more cash than any other of the football leagues in Germany, Spain, France or Italy and inevitably all that cash comes from the punters - via gate money, TV rights and sponsorship. The revenue generated now stands at £2,479 million per annum and the country that comes closest to that tidy sum is Germany on £1,664 million. The income from gate money is much higher than in any other country but this may be a combination of more fans as well as higher gate prices. Certainly ticket prices here are much higher than in Germany for example. Income from TV is also higher but the new deal next season will drop this by 25%. The business models of the whole of the football league is crackers. The Premier League generates a trading profit of 4% before tax but overall the Football League loses over £600 million per year. Apart from a few top clubs - by no means all of them - most clubs inside and outside the Premier League have significant debts. Chelsea still has the biggest wages bill but Manchester City is fast catching up. But what makes Manchester City unique is that its wages bill is equal to 107% of its annual income. It is Manchester City, of course, that pays the ridiculous Carlos Tevez a reported £286,000 per week - nearly £15 million per year. He hates Manchester, he tells us, and has no reasons ever to go near the place ever again. Errrrr! Doesn't his incredible pay packet create some kind of reason to go to Manchester? The owners, who are, I think, getting a bit fed up with Mr Tevez's whining have told him to sod off and go play for somebody else. Perhaps he will find somewhere on this Earth where he can buy a house for less than £8 million, which, he further tells us, is impossible in Manchester. Now, I am no expert on Manchester house prices but I am prepared to suggest that at that price he could even buy several houses in Alderley Edge, where all the footballers live. Mind you at £8 million he would be spending only just over half his annual income - ignoring any extra he gets for advertising, etc., of course. It's equivalent to an ordinary Joe Public buyer having to cope with getting a house for about £15,000. Still, I know it's hard for some footballers to face reality.
There are lots of other bits of data in the Deloitte report, all tending to suggest that the Football League is really bankrupt. To be losing £600 million per year when accumulated debts stand at £3,500 million suggests an unsustainable business model that George Osborne may be able to help them with. Although no football league club has gone out of business since Maidstone in 1992, there have been many near misses and I would not feel very enthusiastic about investing any of my money in a football team. All the top clubs have become no more than the play things of over-rich billionaires.
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