I'm not an obsessive soccer fan but a Chelsea/Watford fixture is special for me and I was lucky enough to be taken to Stamford Bridge for the game (which Chelsea won convincingly and stylishly). It's special because I used to live in Watford and thus support when they were a solid fourth division side acting as a retirement home for former first division players such as Cliff Holton. And then later when I first had a flat in London I occasionally used to watch Chelsea in the Peter Osgood days. Two major differences between now and then. This is what the ground used to look like.

And now.

More significantly compare the length of the shorts in these two photos. Can we learn anything from footballer's hemlines?

I've been taken to task for not disclosing that I know the author of a book I mentioned yesterday. Someone called Derek asked whether Nicolette Jones was a friend of mine - you can check out the exchange here. I'm not sure whether I should feel flattered that he'd think that this blog might even be compared with quality journalism or simply irritated that anyone would want to be so snide. Incidentally, if I were to declare an interest every time I mention a name I fear this blog would become as boring as Arsenal winning 1-0.

In the world of three for twos and micro-celebrity cut-and-paste instant books one category of publishing in particular is being punished. It is the serious work of non-fiction thoroughly researched, well-written and aimed at the general reader as well as the scholar.

Of course there are exceptions such as Norman Davies's recently published Europe at War which will undoubtedly set the tills ringing in the run-up to Christmas but is, as ever with Davies, a monumental work of scholarship as well as a rattling good read.

A more typical example of the genre is The Plimsoll Sensation by Nicolette Jones, the writer and freelance journalist. I have no idea how many copies Little Brown have sold to date in the UK (and no doubt they'll let us know in due course) but I'm sure it hasn't been easy to persuade bookshops to stock more than a token number. However the reviews have been spectacular and yesterday it won the Mountbatten Maritime Prize. It will go on to win more prizes and more great reviews because it is quite simply a fascinating book about a fascinating guy in a fascinating period of history. Amazon will no doubt continue to sell the book well but traditional booksellers will probably have already cleared their shelves for the next batch of 'sure-fire bestsellers'.

I'm beginning to sound like a grumpy old bookman, so I'd better sign off.

PS I was very pleased to link the Plimsoll Sensation to an excellent non-Amazon Internet History Bookshop. Offering a good service with specialist knowledge works as well on the web as it does in a traditional retail environment. I hope they succeed.

Yesterday evening I tramped down to the hideous building housing the UK Government's Department of Trade and Industry.

The event was the launch of the Booksellers Association report on the digitisation of content, Brave New World. We had speeeches from the team who put together the report; from David Roche, President of the BA, CEO of Borders UK (whose website didn't work this morning, hence no link) and book trade personality of the year 2005; and from Victoria Barnsley, CEO of HarperCollins whose 'business' website is extremely helpful to professionals in the book trade and which links (rather quietly I thought) to 'consumer' sites.

The theme was that booksellers as well as publishers need to engage in the 'digital' revolution and that authors and publishers should facilitate a process of partnership.Everyone was saying the right things and the report itself is absolutely excellent and a credit to the BA and its authors. But nice words butter no parsnips. Here's my threepenny's worth.

1. Authors and authors' agents and societies need to trust publishers to protect and manage their copyrights in the digital age. There will be disagreements about rights and terms and consent and permissions and it is understandable that authors wish to have guarantees of protection and remuneration. However, if publishers don't act with speed and decisiveness there may be little future for paid-for content on the web. Delaying implementation while the minutiae of every author's contract are debated at a collective and individual level simply won't work. Digital sales are analogues of print sales and should be covered by existing contracts as far as possible.

2. Retailers need to invest in risk-taking. I don't think anyone knows what the future holds for electronic books but if bookshops wish to be viewed as the trusted source for literature and information they need to demonstrate that in their stores. They also need to negotiate terms with publishers which reflect the new reality rather than the former stock-holding and capital intensive past.

3. Publishers need to invest in a digital infrastructure for their books. We are building BookStore for ourselves and all publishers who wish to join. The working prototype was demonstrated at the Frankfurt Book Fair a month ago and literally scores of publishers have contacted us to discuss implementation in more detail. The first two Macmillan digital 'bookstores' to go live in January 2007 will be Macmillan Science and Macmillan New Writing. We shall be wanting to work with retailers, wholesalers, search engines to ensure that our authors' work is given the maximum possibility of selling in any format.

For the whole book trade I think the time has come to stop writing strategy reviews and planning systems. The time has come to invest, act, experiment and learn from the real world of publishing and selling.

I was meant to be in Bangalore this week for a board meeting of the Wisden Group but had to be in autumnal London instead. The reason for the Bangalore meeting was that Wisden has moved its Cricinfo headquarters and its group CEO, Tom Gleeson, there. EFY Times, The Hindu and various other newspapers covered the event. There are few things more English than Wisden and yet the move is completely logical. Market size, enthusiasm for the game, availability of high-quality, committed and techno-savvy people make the move exciting and inevitable. Fortunately the Almanack itself will continue to be edited by the English Matthew Engel, published by the English John Wisden & Co, printed in England by the English Richard Clay and sold to the UK book trade by the very English A&C Black sales team. Plus c'est la meme chose, plus ca change.

Last night I attended a wonderful farewell dinner for Alan Giles who is retiring from being CEO of the HMV Group which owns Waterstone's bookshop chain.

The great and the good (and some of the not so good) were all there to wish Alan well. In spite of various fracas over central buying, demands for ever greater discounts from booksellers, the takeover of Ottakar's Alan was always forthright, professional and a pleasure to argue with. He leaves the chain in much better shape than he found it and with a top-class management team to take it forward. There is a real place for high-quality bricks, mortar and web book retailers in the UK and Waterstone's is in prime position.

Walking to the event in the Waterstone's flagship Piccadilly store I heard  a news item on my portable radio about a group of scientists who have mentioned to return sight to blind mice. I was delighted that the scientists had decided to publish their ground-breaking results in the very best place.

I promised a fuller tribute to the great publisher and person, Alan Maclean. Our archivist, Alysoun Sanders, has written this piece with links to some of the obituaries.

Alan Maclean, who died last month, aged 81, is well remembered by colleagues and others in the publishing world for his kindness, his wit, his charm and courtesy as well as for his positive influence on the success of Macmillan during the 30 years he worked for the company. 

 Alan started at Macmillan in 1954, when Dan Macmillan (“Mr Dan”) was Chairman of the company and the Macmillan building in St Martin’s St was, as he described it, a “rabbit warren of offices, some with clerks crouched on high stools at tall ledger desks”.  During Alan’s distinguished career at Macmillan he was a Director of both Macmillan & Pan Books.  In 1965 he married Robin Empson, who had been his secretary.  When he retired in 1984 he was credited with having a great influence on the building up of the firm.

 

Some of his accounts of this time, which were renowned for making old hands weak with laughter, are recorded in his book of reminiscences published in 1997: No, I tell a lie, it was the Tuesday - a title devised during an editorial meeting in the 1970s as a suitable title for an outstandingly boring autobiography.  His is anything but.  Instead it brings life to this period of the company’s history, much of which was under the leadership of Harold Macmillan. 

 

Colleagues have spoken of his capacity for building devoted and lasting friendships.  His authors, who included many great writers of the twentieth century, became great friends and the friendship never wavered whatever their latest offering.  C P Snow, Frank Tuohy, Muriel Spark, Jane Duncan, John Wain, Barbara Pym, Lilian Hellman and many others, valued him for his wisdom, humour and integrity.  His opinion on editorial & publishing matters was often sought, even after he retired, by Margaret Laurence and others and he became literary executor to Rebecca West. 

  

Fuller tributes can be found in the obituaries in The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian and The Independent whose archive is unavailable to non-payers but who published an excellent piece by my former boss and mentor, Robin Denniston and by Robin Baird Smith, and from which I've extracted some quotes:

 

Robin first met him after he had been “shooed out of the Foreign Office”  …and rescued by Billy Collins and went to work in the Glasgow factory as assistant to the deputy Chairman.  Robin was a trainee there.  The “two poor Englanders” were thrown together and used to eat heavy and boozy high teas with each other at his landlady’s residence.

 

“Muriel Spark called him ‘the best-liked editor in London’”

 

“He became famous as an excellent editor – not only of Muriel Spark, but of Lillian Hellman, Rebecca West, CP Snow, Pamela Hansford Johnson and Joyce Grenfell.  He was the heart and soul of MacmillanLondon, a much older and more prestigious firm than Collins, and became the favourite of “Mr Dan”, the elder brother of “Mr Harold”.  ..

 

 

“He was a truly friendly, delightful and deeply good man”

 

 Robin Baird Smith:

 

Robin Baird Smith says that it was thanks to him that he became a publisher.

 

“He was the last of a breed of publisher, now extinct, best described as the equivalent of the actor manager:  At the heart of his personality and energy was a passionate editor of the old school.  He acted on instinct and hunch, excelled at spotting new talent and kept accountants at bay.  Unusually for the manager of a large publishing house, he made the people who worked for him happy.  And this was his avowed intention.”

 

“Maclean knew talent when he saw it and backed it with relentless energy”

 

“His authors loved him dearly and he shared their lives”

 

But it is amongst his colleagues that he will be remembered as a splendid person to work with, and as a shoulder to lean on, for his ability to smile at life with a wry but affectionate air as well as his patience, and his self-deprecatory humour.He was a charming man who will go down in Macmillan folklore.

 

A fortnight ago an important publisher, Charles Clark, died. He worked at Sweet and Maxwell (now part of Thomson Legal and Regulatory), at Penguin (where he was among other things MD of Penguin Education, now part of Pearson Education), at Hutchinson (which has no website presence but nestles within Random House UK) and for the Publishers Association where he was legal consultant. He was the keeper of the flame of copyright and was 'theological' in its defence. He was also very generous and a mover and shaker in all matters of general book trade importance. He was part of a fast disappearing generation of all-round publishers which has been replaced by specialists focussing on one field of publishing - education or science or literary fiction or children's books. I suspect the new structures are more efficient and more profitable but they do leave a gap for cross-trade issues - and copyright is the foremost one.

So change is all around us and three events this week and one historical one illustrate it.

This evening at the Royal Society is the Autumn Reception of the Academic and Professional Division of the PA (whose website is going to undergo a serious overhaul in the New Year). The guest of honour is the British politician, writer and editor Boris Johnson and there will be representatives from government, higher education, academia, research funding bodies, research councils and the library world. The conversation will be all about digital delivery - not whether or why or how but what are the next steps? Change is accepted and welcomed albeit with some trepidation and some very real concerns.

Tomorrow sees the retirement dinner for the CEO of HMV, the Reading FC supporter and former MD of Waterstones (and several other jobs in book retailing), Alan Giles. I can't say I've always agreed with Alan, not least over the takeover of Ottakars by HMV but he's always been a supporter of bookshops and of book sales in the UK and always straight. Yet another change for the 'traditional' book trade.

On Thursday there is the launch of the Booksellers Association Digitisation of Content report. I guess it will address the role of the traditional bookseller in a digital world, how they can participate, what are the threats and what are the opportunities. Unlike the PA meeting there is still a sense of resistance to change and deep fear for the future. However, the BA and some enlightened retailers are investing in understanding more and finding new business models and ways to continue to serve their customers.

All this change reminds me of Macmillan's heritage and in particular Harold Macmillan's famous speech to MPs in the Houses of Parliament in South Africa. If you do nothing else today spend five minutes listening to what he had to say - it's brilliant, compassionate and still relevant.

Luke Johnson is Chairman of Britain's most innovative TV station, Channel 4. He has also been involved in the restaurant trade (Belgo, Pizza Express etc) and a number of other businesses. But I know him only though his weekly 'Maverick' column in The Sunday Telegraph. He has written on publishing in the past (and with some insights) but yesterday he wrote a rough guide to corporate language. One of the commenters to this blog pointed me to a videocast of Dick Harrington of Thomson explaining why they have decided to sell Thomson Learning. It contains quite a lot of corporate language but not as insightful as this selection from Luke Johnson's corporo-lexicographic database. I do hope that you might like to add your own gems.

Safety droids - tedious Health and Safety managers who go around highlighting the tiniest risks.

Melpew - the language of the fast-food industry - a contraction of the phrase - Can I help you?

Elephant Man strategy - a scheme simply too scary to back even if it sounds incredibly exciting. The Channel Tunnel is an example.

Moonshine shop - the research and development department.

Bobbleheading - mass nodding by staff in a meeting at a remark by the boss that no-one understands.

Greenwash - a company that touts its environmental credentials to deflect attention from other, less attractive aspects of its operations.

I must go. I have a blamestorming meeting to attend.

Back from the meeting where I was reminded that our very own new word dictionary for the 21st century, From al desko to zorbing is out any day now - al desko means eating lunch in the office and zorbing is a thrills and spills extreme sport which I'd rather never experience.

I came across this wonderful photo yesterday in a newspaper. It is a picture of the Canadian naturalist, Charlie Russell with a brown bear from Kamchatka.There's much more about bears at his website and the pictures are terrific.

While looking for the photo on the web I tried to remember the Edward Lear limerick about Kamchatka - and as is the way took a detour into Edward Lear sites and found this marvellously comprehensive one. It's corny I know but ain't the web wonderful for rediscovering forgotten treasues? Here's the limerick in question.

Just in case I might be considered too frivolous for a Sunday here are some sobering statistics about public libraries in England between 1995/6 and 2004/5 (the latest audited year). Total gross expenditure on libraries rose from £603 million to £1021 million. The proportion spent on books fell from a miserable 11.56% to a disastrous and reprehensible 7.37%. You can find more, much more, on this issue at the Good Library Blog.

While this blog has been in existence one of the most opinionated commenters has been an independent (in business and in spirit) retailer, Clive Keeble. Essentially he gruntles on about Amazon, supermarkets, publishers' terms, unfairness, stupidity of publishers, despicability of corporates etc. It is with immense pleasure therefore that he made the following positive comment about one of our books a couple of days ago. This means more to me than any review in the Times Literary Supplement in spite of the predictable sting in the tail.