I was in Oxford yesterday at the Macmillan Education offices in the former car-building (and now new Mini building) area of Cowley. Driving back I thought I might indulge in one of my favourite pastimes - listening to international cricket on the radio (Test Match Special). Unfortunately the English team were so dreadful and unprofessional in being beaten for the fourth time in a row by Sri Lanka I couldn't bear to listen.

Instead I tried to calculate the size of the publishing industry in Oxfordshire (Oxford and its surrounding area). It is a really impressive bunch of companies. Big daddy in terms of employees, sales and profits is probably Oxford University Press itself. Reed Elsevier has two major units - Elsevier Science in Kidlington (which incorporates the famous and brillian Pergamon Press of Robert Maxwell fame) and Harcourt Education in Jordanhill (incorporating Heinemann Education, Ginn, Rigby etc). Blackwell Publishing is up the road from our offices and, not to be confused with its retailing cousins, is a hugely successful and profitable academic and scientific publisher. A little further South near Abingdon are the main offices of the academic divisions of Informa (Taylor & Francis, Routledge etc). Also in Abingdon we can find Hodder's distribution centre Bookpoint. And there are scores of smaller but no less significant specialist and general publishing firms scattered around the area.

I estimate total sales of publications emanating from these companies at well over €3 billion and profits close on €500m. I reckon this is more than the total profit emanating from London and maybe even New York. Explanations please.