Thousand - please, oh, please, say 'thousand'.

mainly sunny, cool, temps 10

Zoomed all over London today, visiting Borders stores mostly. Did Oxford Street, then Fulham then off to North London, and area I'm totally unfamiliar with, and still am. This however won't stop me from talking knowledgeably about it, preferably to someone who has never been to London. In the world of the blind, the one eyed man is King. Normally I'm the one fumbling around in the dark, so it's refreshing to have any nuggets of knowledge.

The rep let me off at the Victoria and Albert Museum and Michael met me for coffee and cakes at the Brompton Quarter restaurant. A kind of odd place. Not sure I'd recommend it and yet we keep going back there. But I did have a wonderful smoothie - mango, banana, yoghurt and honey. But, when asked whether I'd like fizzy or still water, I said still, thinking tap. But they brought bottled. My mistake, I should have been specific. But there's a growing discontent among London consumers that restuarants foist bottled water (expensive at that) on customers. But that you can tell the quality of the restaurant by whether they offer tap water, and even bring it without asking. The Brompton Quarter doesn't. But, I learn.

We're off for dinner tonight with one of our favorite people in the book biz - Peter Newsom, the head of Export sales for Headline and the man responsible for our Around The World tour in the autumn. Need to get him drunk and have him agree to South Africa and India this year. Not sure there's enough wine for that anywhere.

Had the funniest, and very humbling experience the other day. Sherise, my Headline editor, was telling me Peter had called her last week from South Africa to say sales of The Cruellest Month were booming - and had tripled from Still Life. I, of course, was about to put the downpayment on the London flat based on that, when Sherise did managed to mention that the sales of Still Life in South Africa were 250. I waited for the 'thousand'. It didn't come.

'So,' I said to Sherise, 'that means The Cruellest Month in South Africa -'.
'Has sold 750 copies,' she said cheerily.

No London flat. No London fizzy or even bottled water at that rate! Oh well. Room for growth.

Must run - speak tomorrow. Hope this finds you thriving.