The Wonderful Mr Wilson

When I was a lowly bookseller in the early 1990s, I noticed a rather aristocratic-looking woman in her 60s, striding around the shop as if she owned it. She stopped, took a book from the shelf and shouted "Antonio! Antonio!" A few seconds later, a slightly disheveled man in a tweed jacket shuffled across the carpet, saying "What? Oh yes...Er...Hmphh..."

It was Anthony Burgess. I recognised him immediately, from his many appearances on chat shows.

Burgess was the polar opposite of Sallinger*; maddeningly prolific and seemingly incapable of turning down an opportunity to appear on television or write a newspaper article. But, as this appearance on the Dick Cavett Show demonstrates, you can see why the offers kept coming in:



* I've been corrected on my spelling of Salinger. My apologies. My wife is always telling me off for not proof-reading what I've written.

The Mother of Invention - A Guide to Genteel Poverty

There was a time when my wife and I were able to enjoy meals out and foreign holidays without having to watch every penny we spent. I think it was 1998. Then we ruined it all by having children, one of whom made it impossible for my wife to return to work.

Since then, our household income has been pitifully small. However, in some ways our years of genteel poverty have been a very positive experience and I've learned some useful lessons that have made me realise how much money I used to waste.

Whether you're poor or just simply mean, I'll think you'll find some of my top tips useful:

1. The Mighty Teaspoon

During a brief period of solvency - I think somebody must have died - I had window blinds installed throughout the house. I wanted curtains, but my wife said that they were 'common'. Within a few months, one of the fittings for a blind came out of the wall, taking a huge chunk of plaster with it, leaving a hole.

I needed a way of keeping the blind up until I had time to replaster the wall, but the hole was too large for screws or nails. Then, in a flash of inspiration, I realised that a teaspoon was the answer to all my problems. The long end would fit tightly into the hole and the upward curve of the spoon end would stop the pole of the blind sliding off.

It worked so well, I didn't bother to repair the wall for two years.


2. The Eco Ball

If you already use these, you'll know how wonderful they are.  Instead of using washing powder and selecting a one-hour cycle, you can wash your clothes by using two of these in a short rinse cycle. They save a fortune in washing powder and also use far less water and electricity.

I won't bore you with the science, but cheesy socks will smell like a meadow after a mere 15 minutes of washing. I will never buy Bold again.


3. The Powerline Adapter

This wonderful little device uses your home's electrical wiring system to send internet data from your router to devices in other rooms. I wanted to watch BBC iPlayer programmes on my ordinary television without having to spend a fortune on a home cinema system or a contract with Sky (Boo! Murdoch!) or Virgin (Tony Blair with a beard), so I bought a couple of these and now enjoy a good quality picture and connection without any additional expense.

4. The Broken Blind

My lovely new blinds, all installed by Hillarys, broke rather too quickly. It seemed ridiculous to have to buy a whole new blind just because the cord was broken, but what could I do?

Then I had an idea:

The cords of these blinds are nearly always synthetic, so I set fire to each end, quickly blew the flames out before the smoke alarm went off and pressed the two molten ends together. As they cooled down, they formed a solid bond which hasn't broken in several years.

I would also recommend Lego for blinds, which comes in many shapes and sizes and, when used with superglue, can effectively repair broken plastic fittings.


5. The Tester Pot

If you have a small bathroom and want to paint a wall the same colour, don't waste money on a £20 pot of paint. Just buy two or three tester pots and that should be all you need. I painted our bathroom for the grand sum of £3.


6. The Carpet Offcut

Unless you live in a huge house, you can usually find a tasteful offcut that will fit the dimensions of your room. I had a new pure wool carpet professionally installed in our sitting room for under £100.

7. The Double-Ended Jack

Assuming that you have some cheap audio software, if you plug one end of the lead into your headphone socket and the other into the one for the microphone, you can record anything on the internet and turn it into an MP3 file. It's like taping something - remember that?

These are just a few of the many money-saving ideas I've discovered and whenever anything breaks, I ask myself one basic question:

"Does it really need to be replaced? Does it even need to be repaired, or will a teaspoon do until around 2017?"

You'd be amazed at the number of times the answer is a teaspoon.

The Minty Biscuit

What starts off as a fairly dull radio phone-in about disabled car stickers suddenly changes gear, thanks to a gentleman called Barry:

Away With the White Horses

It has been an odd couple of days. Yesterday, a man turned up at work on a white horse, as if he was inviting me to join him on a quest. I would have said yes, but I was busy trying to move ten thousand books to a new building, one car load at a time.

I never found out what he wanted.

In the evening, a friend casually told us that he had done the voiceover for an advert that was voted the greatest UK television commercial of all time. Why hadn't he mentioned it before? I'm still telling people that I was on BBC Radio Five 14 years ago.

This morning I woke up to the sound of horses hooves and as I stood on one leg to place our broken blind in the small gap between the roller and ceiling, I saw some men in chainmail walk past. Then I remembered that it was the 750th anniversary of the Battle of Lewes.

The actual anniversary was a few days ago. At least, that's what everyone seems to think, but didn't we change our calendar in 1752 and lose eleven days?

Today, the town ground to a halt and a group of volunters recreated the Battle of Lewes, following the original route of 1264:

It was all good fun, unlike the original battle.

I always mixed feelings at events like these. On the one hand, I enjoy living in a town that cherishes its past (I imagine that in a hundred years' time, Lewes will look almost the same as it does today). But I also feel conscious of being, as the song goes, on the outside looking in. Perhaps I'll never be a Lewesian.

But enough of Lewes. This is supposed to be a book blog, so I'll move on to some of my favourite discoveries from last week, beginning with this striking frontispiece:

It comes from a 1920s book on aircraft, which was surprisingly worthless. I threw away the book but kept the frontispiece.

The next illustration has a very odd caption underneath:

"A quick desperate wriggle and his legs were over the board and the rest of him followed anyhow." Well, yes.

This illustration is from a rather disturbing 1920s book about the mind:

It comes from a chapter called "Cretins and Dunces", in which the author expresses view that weren't out of step with the times. The widespread enthusiasm for eugenics shocks us today, but of course it enjoyed a wide range of supporters that included Churchill, H G Wells, Theodore Roosevelt, George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes, John Harvey Kellogg and Marie Stopes.

Finally, two completely bonkers 1960s sci-fi novels:

Androids with whips? For some reason, that reminds me of this atrocious song.

As for this, perhaps it was a thoughtful novel about eugenics that was given a less than enlightened cover treatment to boost sales. I don't know. I can safely say that I will never read this book to find out.