Phil The Governor

 Hey guys and gals , i just want to promote my mate's LJ blog philguv  who runs the Dover Castle pub  Teynham in Kent. He is a bloody good chef and his food is to die for darlings!

World Book Night

This evening  (Saturday March 5th) has been World Book Night (for those who have been hibernating) and I strolled down to Brighton Library to join in the fun. I only knew about the location of the event when I perused the philosophy section in Waterstones earlier. I bought “Ghostly Demarcations” Jacques Derrida , Terry Eagleton , Frederic Jameson , Antonio Negri (Verso) a it was at a reduced price for the paperback.

Details of this night are at http://www.worldbooknight.org

It was a very busy night and people were like bulls in a china shop trying to grab the free books. I saw my mate Rob with his wife as he was doing something there at about 10.30 pm. I left before then as i was getting tired and my legs ached.


Loads of free books given out and I came out of the library with ten books just after ten

The list is as follows -

“The Reluctant Fundamentalist” Mohsin Hamid
“New Selected Poems 1966 - 1987” Seamus Heaney
“The Blind Assassin” Margaret Atwood
“Beloved” Toni Morrison
“The Curious Incident of The Dog In The Night-Time” Mark Haddon
“Cloud Atlas” David Mitchell
“Agent Zigzag” Ben Macintyre

The above are part of the 25 titles given free -

I also snagged the other ones for free and  the authors were there giving them away free anyway  -

“Master plan” Charles Bancroft (Raptor Press)
“The Architect” Charles Bancroft (Raptor Press)
“Colonel Barker’s Monstrous Regiment” Rose Collis (Virago)

The only book I have read before of these ten is the one by Mark Haddon and it is totally hilarious.




Listening to extracts from books




A bit of a poetry slam



Customers waiting to grab their free books.

Writer's Block: The nickname game

[Error: unknown template qotd]
My friend, Georgian, has a nickname PIN 1 as she is the had honcho ,which she has embraced , and we got that from a film we saw and for the moment i cannot remember the title of that film.

My mate, Rick Horden is well nown as Rick The Hat , for he often wears a hat.

My cousin Tim is called Spot , probably because of his bald spot on his head.

I am often referred to as Jazzy or Jazzy D  by the female servers in the Evening Star, and Ally Smith often calls me by that nickname. Infact i chose it myself as i am a big funky jazz fan (in both senses of the word).

Brighton Breezy

A day in Brighton going down to the Evening Star and then onwards to have a meal at the Brighthelm .

In the pub I had a pint of Oakleaf Piston Porter (4.6% ABV). Saw Brighton Phil with his spanking Porsche car. He wants a hardback copy of the Shortwave Guide I sold him last time in paperback.

Had lunch at the Brighthelm. Opted for the pork Sunday roast. It was delicious.

Bought a paperback from Waterstones and then went down to the funky record shop Rare Kind and put by a single as I am going to sell some records tomorrow at Monkey Music.

The paperback was -
Sarah Bakewell “How To Live, A Life Of Montaigne in One Question and twenty attempts at an answer” (Vintage)

Long title for a biography/philosophy book!

David Mitchell, whose book “Cloud Atlas” ,one of the 25 titles given away last night, suffers from stammering and believes that “The Kings Speech” is the best portrayal of the problems a stammered handicapped person goes through. His alma mater is the University of Kent in Canterbury.

Tim, my cousin, believes that the My Life In Books series on BBC2 hosted by Ann Robinson is elitist. Maybe he is right since , as far as I am aware, none of the commentators talking to Ann have had a degree or at least some level of academia behind them. Melvin Bragg’s “Read All About It” was accessible and informative and the range of lively guests moved from footballers to actresses, and it never took itself too seriously, nor talked down to the audience either. It is that kind of book programme on TV that we sorely miss right now.