Last year the British book trade spent a huge amount of time and money on the referral of the Waterstone's takeover of Ottakars to the Competition Commission. I mentioned it frequently - e.g here - not least because I was at the time President of the Publishers Association and thus charged with leading our team during the investigation. Ultimately publishers lost the argument and the takeover went ahead, albeit at a significantly lower cost to Waterstone's owners HMV than had originally been proposed. Apart from the money the other issue was diversion. Instead of publishing, promoting and selling books the industry underwent a prolonged period of navel-gazing.

Yesterday saw another referral to the Competition Commission - Woolworth's proposed takeover of the wholesaler Bertram Books. Apparently the investigation will take several months to complete and presumably once more substantial amounts in lawyers' and economists' fees. At least we can hope the trade will not be diverted from its primary objectives.

So back to books. One of our most successful publishing programmes of the last decade resulted from a collaboration between Macmillan Education and the brilliant lexicographic team at Bloomsbury. We have sold more than two million copies of the dictionaries emanating from this collaboration and are on the point of launching a new edition of the flagship Macmillan English Dictionary. Along with the usual launch parties in various parts of the world (the London one is at Globe Theatre with Andrew Marr metaphorically cutting the ribbon) we are releasing 7500 red ballons each labelled with one of the 7500 most frequently used words in the English language. The person who finds a balloon the furthest distance from its launch pad will win a round-the-world air ticket. So watch out for red balloons. And why red?

Obvious, isn't it?

There are many difficulties and complexities in the dictionary market. The one thing I can say for absolute certain is that it need never be referred to the Competition Commission. It's about as competitive as it's possible to imagine.

Incidentally, I was interviewed for BBC Radio Five Live about why CEOs write blogs. My answers were, I fear, deeply inarticulate but fortunately the interview was broadcast before 6a.m. and so the audience will have been pitifully and mericifully small.

P.S. Here's the link.