For the last few months there's been a German intern working for us just outside my office. He goes back to university to finish his studies tomorrow and so we're giving him a drink or two this evening to say thanks for all the good work he's done and for being so understanding of our strange British ways. As I was leaving the office yesterday evening he asked whether the drinks would still be on if England lost yesterday's friendly soccer game. Of course the drinks are on and of course England lost. Anglo-German soccer relations have been normalised since that great game in 2001. I see that Brown and Merkel were at the game. What was their score?

But it's good to see that the BBC have given headline space to Christian Schweiger's Britain, Germany and the Future of the European Union which we published late last year and which argues that our two countries are the ideal partners in Europe (although I think the natural German assumption that the EU is a good thing in itself is not so widely held in Britain).

I was disappointed that yesterday's blog about Amazon's new initiative CreateSpace generated only two comments so far - it's not too late. I'll be interested to see how this all develops. I wonder how author-friendly the Amazon contract is. I wonder what will happen when one of on-demand authors is sued for libel. I wonder what will happen if one of the books is a pirate edition. I wonder where the quality control will come from. Perhaps someone at Amazon/CreateSpace would like to address these issues.

Although it's August and Britain tends to go on holiday there is still plenty of activity at Macmillan. Yesterday we announced our intention to acquire Frank Brothers in Delhi. Together with our existing businesses this will make Macmillan the number one educational publisher in India and underscores our commitment to education and business there.