There's a wonderful news story this morning about a suggestion by the French Prime Minister in 1956, Guy Mollet, to the British Government that France and Britain merge. And when that idea was scotched by the British Prime Minister, Anthony Eden he then applied for membership of the British Commonwealth. This triggered a memo just released which stated that:

"The PM told him on the telephone that he thought in the light of his talks with the French:

• "That we should give immediate consideration to France joining the Commonwealth

• "That Monsieur Mollet had not thought there need be difficulty over France accepting the headship of her Majesty

• "That the French would welcome a common citizenship arrangement on the Irish basis"

We publish an excellent series of books with the generic title, What If? which address just this sort of thing but I don't think even they had the nerve to think this was within the realms of possibility. But just think, what if France and Britain merged? No European Union? A state-driven British economy. The English language 'purified' and kept pure. A much better rugby team. Windsor Castle moved to Versailles. No net book agreement in France! Les Tuileries converted into a cricket ground. Extraordinaire.

Back to publishing, this is the week when news comes in from round the Macmillan world about the final reckoning for 2006. There's one stand-out piece of good news from just about everywhere and it is the success of both Macmillan Children's Books and Priddy Books. The latter was set up only a few years ago and it is already the leader in information books for young (and not so young) children. There are always arguments about whether children's books can cross cultures. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. In the case of both these businesses just about every country has welcomed their titles as if they were created specially for their children. It's great to see genuinely innovative publishing teams succeed in this tough old world.