It's been a year since I last blogged, and much has changed. More grey hair, another grandchild, a new house, and a new job. I'm still selling books (mostly online) but I do so on behalf of others and receive a monthly salary - a big change from running my own business and paying for the privilege.
I've become involved in different book "specialities". The "ranting" version of me just sold computer books (and still does), but my new persona specializes in books on investing and politics. The cast of characters from the old blog are still intact - the wife, the cat (just), the daughter - bless her.
Returning to someone else's payroll after fifteen years was an odd experience. The new employers have a swish open-plan office in Petersfield and the 10-12 employees all work together. To my surprise I am the oldest employee by a factor of about 30 years (my managing director is younger than the daughter), and a carer had to be appointed to help me through my first months and to teach me how to use an Apple Mac.
We work as quietly as possible (exciting ring-tones on mobile phones are not encouraged) and employees largely communicate among themselves by email - even if the person they are emailing is sitting only three feet away. When conversation does break out it is sotto voce - meaning that the hard-of-hearing Nappa cannot hear a word of what is being said to him. But we've all learned to co-exist relatively harmoniously. For a while the wife got a little agitated about my seemingly close rapport with the young carer (slightly saucy exchanges of text messages out of office hours), but all-in-all it has been a good move - even if it has led me down some strange paths.
Possibly the strangest of the strange paths is my being responsible for the bookshop at next week's Conservative Party Conference in Blackpool. This is a bit of a worrying call as none of us has ever been to a party conference before and I have brought in some 3,500 books to try and sell to the 10,000-odd delegates. The booklist probably includes lots of really unsuitable stuff, but the given wisdom is that author-signings work really well. Accordingly I've got lots of copies of new books by William Hague, Boris Johnson, Sandra Howard, Douglas Hurd, Peter Oborne, etc., and just hope that they all turn up. I've also had a lot of advice from Iain Dale, the political blogger-in-chief who once ran the conference bookshop operation. He too will sign copies of his new books - 'The Little Book of Boris' and 'Iain Dale's Guide to Political Blogging 2007'.
Anyway, four pallets of books and merchandise are heading north already, and I'll be following them in a Ford Transit on Thursday bringing my electric screwdriver, my security pass - if it ever arrives, my camera and a new suit (having embarrassingly burst the trousers of my last suit whilst unpacking books for an investor's event in Docklands last week).
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