Stonehenge Decoded and other aspects of a Friday blog ramble

In the 1960s when I first visited Stonehenge as a teenager the basic plan was to insert tab A into slot B and try to comprehend some of the deep and meaningless aspects of the stones, whilst also trying to stop the top of ones head from unscrewing.

Anyway provoked by the enquiring minds of the youf of today I revisited the fundamental questions about Stonehenge. What does it do? and how does it do it?

Pretty obviously what happens is that the druid enters the stone circle between two stones and exits between another two into a different reality, I seem to remember at some time in the 60s there was a sign there saying “Do Not Adjust Your Mind, Reality Is At Fault” or something.  

How it does this is a bit difficult to put into words that will bridge the age gap, and drawing a diagram seemed to be a bit condescending, so I painted them a picture.

I thought I would start with a smaller henge with less stones, I have been putting off painting one with more stones as I get the feeling that something strange may happen.

One of the youf of today asked if it is an optical illusion, to which I answered, just a stone circle with all of the stones around the same size. Some measuring then followed and I was informed that that the upright one on the far right is much shorter, so it is an illusion. 

Always useful to the budding artist to encounter the aspiring art critic.

The life of the modern independent retailer is a tricky one, although to be honest that of the secondhand bookseller has always been somewhat tenuous. Despite wearing the uniform (socks and sandals) at 59 I haven’t yet managed to aspire to the dizzy heights of carpet slippers, but gather there will eventually be some sort of secret initiation ceremony involving the retriever of no returns. Despite maintaining a shop with a permanent look of “out to lunch”. I find I am still encountering customers and sometimes difficult customers.

In this case it was a lady who brought back a book of spells complaining that her broom wouldn’t fly; a refund, well obviously made that strange sucking noise between the teeth, always an indicator that something expensive is about to happen.

Anyway in this instance I withheld the ultimate retailer’s weapon (calling her madam) and explained that I had been selling spell books, man and boy for the last fifty years and no one had ever brought one back complaining that the spells didn’t work.

Unfortunately this approach failed, I have been threatened with no less that the trades descriptions act of 1968 and had to issue a refund of £2.50. In some ways this is quite a relief as the book in question is now safely back where it belongs.

 I have added a picture so you can share my relief that the book is now safely back on the shelf in my bookshop after its difficult and unsuccessful adventure.

While on the subject of not flying, since Ann Gloag (who in no way looks like a witch) pulled the magic carpet from under Manston, rumour has been flying round the world. One is that KLM were not actually having a public display of sour grapes but that when Boet Kreiken said. “Now it is game over; we will redeploy the aircraft. We are gone.” This was actually a euphemism for it just wasn’t profitable to run a passenger service from Manson.

Apparently Charles Buchanan has been seen standing on the not inconsiderable coastline of the Thanet transport hub brandishing a model aeroplane and extolling fish to buy airline tickets.  

Another rumour is that the big guns of the local Conservative party have found that the solution to not enough passengers is no passengers and are trying to broker a deal for a huge freight only hub at Manston.  

In the circumstances it may be as well that Ramsgate Sandys is going apparently there has been something of a Gale there over potential freight night flights as apparently magic mushrooms can only be moved at night.

No ramble would be complete without some reference to our own dear councils so I will drop the broomstick and concentrate on the legal highs for a while. At the moment socialist run TDC is working on the disposal of the last remaining high profile council owned Ramsgate building. As good socialists their master plan is to hand it to the largest capitalist they can find. I am told there will be no payment to TDC for the very long peppercorn rent apart from half the rental return on putting a farmers market – as far from the main car parks as possible – in the third of the building that isn’t to become the largest pub in Europe.

What we need here is the TDC Margate Tories to apply the magic solution of grant funding to turn it into the largest public venue in Ramsgate and if that fails the Kent Tories to use a good old fashioned socialist inspired subsidy, like the have with Turner Contemporary.

As things are looking once copious quantities of legal high have been imbibed and the customers have become naughtily inebriate, they will make their way past the bouncers and the regular policing on Harbour Parade to the takeaways in King Street where there is no apparent policing.

The council have licensed these until four in the morning so the worst of the political offenders – who are made to live there in social housing on the ground floor next to the street – will get no sleep whatsoever and are likely to step in an amusing pool of beer and kebab if they do venture out.  

Of course the council have just compulsorily purchased the huge old carpet shop there, but I guess this would be deemed as being far to close to the car park to be suitable for an indoor and farmers market.

Summer being just around the corner and yesterday being my day off, I decided to unfold our folding caravan, which has become a bit retro, by accident rather than design. I thought I had better check everything was ok before unfolding it at a campsite.

The instruction book says that one person can put it up in about 5 mins, it takes two of us about 10 but still amuses people at a campsite so here are the unfolding pictures.  

            
Now for some photos from the last few days I will endeavour to add some text to them if I get the time. 

Market day in Ramsgate today, something that has a place for all budgets

I tend to go for the Rooks meat or cheese and salad with salad roll, which is very good value at £1.99

As you may know with these rambles, I will add to it if I get time, it’s market day today and my bookshop is fairly busy, at this very moment I am dealing with a trades description issue relating to a lady who bought a book out of the occult section which has failed to make her broom fly.  

The As and Bs of paperback fiction, the insanity of war, the madness of blogging and of course the wretched airport, a midweek ramble.

The whole business of selling secondhand paperback fiction has shifted once again, this time it’s due to Amazon changing its free postage. As anyone who buys secondhand books online will probably know, a book listed on Amazon for 1p isn’t necessarily the cheapest, for about a month now the golden year of secondhand books being available for as little as £1 including postage from Amazon has ended. Well not exactly as they still are if you want to buy a tenners worth at one time, but gone are the days of finding the book you want in Waterstones, pointing the amazon app at the barcode and buying is very cheaply. 1p on amazon means £2.81 which with most ordinary paperbacks means that if I have it it will probably be considerably cheaper and it is also likely to be cheaper on Ebay, but this means a lot of fiddling about.

This means that Ebay is fast becoming the biggest player in the world of cheap secondhand paperbacks, form the buyers point of view I think the main factors in it’s favour are that the feedback is easy to follow and most listings are accompanied by a photo of the book.

From my point of view it is the sold listings that are particularly useful at the moment I have just been through the As and Bs in our paperback fiction, the main task being to make sure the one on the shelves in my bookshop are cheaper than you could buy them online.

The other task is to try and work out which books should go on the fairly rapid journey to the 50p section, on to the 5p section and then to recycling, this is where Ebay sold listings come into their own. once you have looked a book up on Ebay set the dropdown “sort” top right on “price +p&p lowest first and dot the circle that says “sold listings” on the left.

I am reading “The Ghost Road” by Pat Barker as part of my trying to understand WW1 this is the third book in the regeneration trilogy, it is exceptionally good, I would put it in the top hundred of fiction written in the last half of the 1900s. It is centred around the treatment of insanity caused by fighting in trenches and focuses on some of the war poets. Dear reader, it is a readers book.

We had two copies on the shelf, one with heavy scoring at 50p and one in good condition at £1.50 which isn’t there now as I am reading it.

Looking it up on amazon the cheapest copy is 1p or £2.81 including postage, on ebay £2.50 including postage. Ebay sold listings show that 19 copies have sold from there in the last three months the cheapest having sold for £1.74, which shows to me a realistic price for someone who is prepared to take a little time and trouble.      

Obviously fiction needs pruning in some way otherwise the non sellers build up to the point where there isn’t room for the books that sell, most of the decisions relating to which books go on the short sharp journey to the being pulped at the paper mill, used to be made by me based on how good the book was, this seemed a bit hard on those books that I hadn’t read. Now I am basing this decision also on whether the book has sold on Ebay in the last three months, that is of course assuming that there are lots of copies listed for sale there.  

So here is a picture of the offending books from the As and Bs which take up about two bookcase in the shop, pulling them out gives me nearly another shelf of space.  

My reading of various books about the first and second world wars is changing my view on the matter, it does seem that the reasons the first world war started were relatively minor and that they could have been avoided.

Sassoon’s Statement raises some interesting questions (Germany wanted to negotiate a peace at this time):

“Lt. Siegfried Sassoon.

3rd Batt: Royal Welsh Fusiliers.

July, 1917.

I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority because I believe that the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that the war upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation has now become a war of agression and conquest. I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them and that had this been done the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.

I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust. I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed.

On behalf of those who are suffering now, I make this protest against the deception which is being practised upon them; also I believe it may help to destroy the callous complacency with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share and which they have not enough imagination to realise.”

One has to appreciate that this was just after he was awarded the MC for gallantry in the trenches.  

The various airline companies that were using Manson Airport seem to be rapidly pulling out, which indicates closure next month. The Thanet conservative group seem to be blaming the whole thing on Labour not changing the terms of the s106 agreement made in 200 preventing nighttime flying.

I have tried to get some answers her in Simon’s blog about the Conservative lead rescue package, mainly asking the question: Along the lines of if Roger Gale manages to put together a rescue package, would this be based on the Che conservatives offering considerable nighttime flying as soon as they regain the balance of power at TDC.

To me the whole business, why the Conservatives didn’t change the nighttime flying rules when they were in power and why they didn't come up with a better buyer for the airport earlier seems all a bit odd.

I guess in Thanet where most of the floating voters seem to either vote Labour to keep the Conservatives out or Conservative to keep Labour, this about what we would expect.

I is looking as thout the airport is going to close in April, that it isn’t for sale and that as it’s a brownfield site there is very little that government at any level can do to influence development there.

Bit of an update on the Manston front http://www.kentnews.co.uk/news/fresh_manston_airport_blow_as_union_chiefs_emerge_gloomy_1_3488745 which seems to be saying that Ann Gloag intends to sell the airport and not develop the land as we had been assuming.

I have notice that much of the comment on the blog recently seems to be about my administration of the comment left by others, please apricticate I manage the comment here mostly with my mobile and apply the comment rules under the comment box. Comment that is off the subject matter gets deleted if I am not sure about it.  

Sorry if there are any typos or grammatical error in this i typed it up very quickly on the cloud mostly using a bluetooth keyboard with my phone.  

Just noticed that The Shipwrights Jazz Bar has sprouted a scaffold

The soon to be opened Italian in King Street a sign

A Ramsgate ramble, arts and crafts fair, shops open and close, some thoughts about bookselling and anything else I think of.

Having received the press release from Nice Things pictured above http://thanetpress.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/a-saturday-in-ramsgate.html I wandered down to The Custom House in Ramsgate and took the pictures below of The Handmade Fair

Artist David Bailey was there and painting in watercolour, something that always interests me as I it’s something I do too..

The Daily Grind Café has opened where The Marmalade Café closed.

Tanning in King Street has closed.

I have to admit to being very conscious this week with In Shops Centres Ltd going bankrupt http://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/news/community/community-news/heartache-at-closure-of-historic-market-hall-1-6372674 that the knock on affect of shops doing badly is now hitting the commercial property owners.

I would guess that if government don’t step in in some way then the damage to local communities will be significant. The key issue here is that shops that provide more in the way of service (the main service being that you can actually look at something before you buy it) can’t get sufficient profits to compete.

In the book world, what is happening with new books is that an increasing number of people are doing their browsing in the remaining bookshops – mostly Waterstones – and the buying online cheaper – mostly Amazon – because the online supplier has significantly less expenses.

In the secondhand book world things are slightly different mainly because the cost of the average secondhand book is much lower than the cost of the average new book. The key here though is it is the retailer who determines the price, it is for this reason that I am still trading as a secondhand bookseller.

With books, as a veracious reader I can always get personal, with my friends one of the first questions in the – hello how are you? I’m alive – conversations that take place on meeting is; “what are you reading?”

So “what are you reading, dear reader?” Well me I’m reading John Irving’s “In One Person” You know the bloke who wrote Cider House Rules, the one that was made into a film, you must have seen it, the one about the abortionist with an ether habit. This one “in one person” is about a bisexual and his crushes on the wrong people. Is it any good? Yes very, Irving seems to be at his best writing sexual comedy. 

So what would I sell it for? What would I pay you for a copy?

Good condition £2.50

Very good condition £2.99 and a very good condition one we would pay £1 in cash or offer a £1.50 exchange voucher for, assuming that we wanted to buy it, which we do at the moment.

What about Amazon, they are selling it new for £5.75 inc p&p, the next cheaper is their Kindle edition at £4.31, secondhand the cheapest they have is in good condition for £2.75, and in very good condition for £3.64 inc p&p. Amazon won’t pay cash for it when you have read it, but they will give you an exchange credit of £0.25.

What about Ebay, the cheapest available in good condition is £2.98 and the cheapest they have sold one recently for is £2.88 including p&p. if you go to sell it on Ebay 2^nd class post would cost you £2.60, so you would be likely to make very little once you have paid listing and PayPal fees and of course paid for the packaging.

I know this is all a bit complicated, but I guess you can see why I am still trading. In simple terms the cheapest cost of reading it, assuming you sell it afterwards is going to be around £2.50 if you use Amazon or Ebay and around £1.50 if you use my bookshop. 

Small amounts I know, but if like me you are a veracious reader, I read about five books a week, it soon mounts up, £20 per week is £1,000 per year. 

On with the ramble, have you got any spam in your fridge? See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25780908 this made me laugh.

Sorry I got a bit diverted there, anyway back to the bookshop and bookselling thing. I don’t really understand the philosophy behind the big online secondhand sites like Amazon and Ebay, but I am making the assumption that they actively take measures to close down their opposition both online and on the street.

Frankly one of the major aspects of online trading that has made it difficult for these sites to compete with my bookshop is the cost of p&p and for a while I think that Amazon Prime has been deliberately running at a loss to damage competition.

Amazon Prime is stock stored in the Amazon warehouse, which is packed and posted by Amazon.

About two years ago, I think, Amazon extended this to secondhand books, big online secondhand booksellers could send Amazon their books, ordinary Amazon customers could sent their books to Amazon post free, for a credit and all of these books Amazon sent to customers post free.

Now for the most part secondhand book customers tend to be smarter than the average person, not only more conventionally literate but also more technologically literate, which means they take the best advantage of the available technology to get the best price.

For example had I discovered John Irving’s book in Waterstones its cover price is £7.99, they may or may not have been selling it a bit cheaper than that, but my first action having browsed it in Waterstones would have been to open the Amazon app on my smartphone and zapped the barcode with the camera. This would have given me the best Amazon price for a very good copy of around £3.50, less than half the price. So I would have pressed the “buy it now” button on my phone and the book would have been posted to me.

Now Amazon have changed their Amazon Prime bookselling regulations and from January this year you have to make £10 worth of purchases to get free postage and packing.  

Rightly or wrongly I see this as the first stage in what was a loss leader directed at putting my shop out of business. Now frankly I don’t think making up a £10 order is going to be too much trouble for the new book buyer, a couple of paperbacks would do the trick but with secondhand books, where the average paperback price is around the £2 mark and many readers weekly book budget is around £5 I think this will make a very big difference indeed.

Over the last few years where secondhand bookshop closures due to the internet making them redundant this is the first significant change in the opposite direction.