This is the scene outside the Pan Bookshop. It wasn't just the trees which were selling like hot cakes. The list below is their top ten books sold by volume in the last four weeks of the 2006.It doesn't tally very well with the bestseller lists in the papers but neither, I guess, does the clientele.

1. Dangerous Book for Boys - Conn and Hal Iggulden

2. Previous Convictions - A.A.Gill

3. Suite Francaise - Irene Nemirovsky

4. North Face of Soho (volume 4 of Unreliable Memoirs) - Clive James

5. Amo Amas Amat - Harry Mount

6. Debrett's Etiquette for Girls - Fleur Britten

7. God Delusion - Richard Dawkins

8. The Kensington Book - Carolyn Starren

9. Made in Italy - Giorgio Locatelli

10. Daughter of the Desert (Gertrude Bell) - Georgina Howell

And the manager wanted me to mention two distinguished also rans:

Sorrows of the Moon - Iqbal Ahmed -- privately published in 2004 but sold 100 copies in the shop this year.

Concorde - Frederic Beniada - at £40 this was in the top five revenue generators for the shop.

I have deliberately not linked any of these titles in order to encourage you to visit (at 158 Fulham Road SW10 9PR) or order by post or e-mail (panbookshop@btclick.com) from the Pan Bookshop.

On the blog transparency front I can now report that up to 31 December Macmillan has earned $109.73 from the ads carried on this site. The cash will apparently be arriving on 5 February, so look out for a major splurge.

And finally last week I wrote about Trinity, Cambridge, my entrance interview and subsequent undistinguished career. Someone has sent me this photo of the intake of 1967 which has me just two rows below my fellow new boy Prince Charles. His university career wasn't much more distinguished than mine but he's certainly got more press coverage.