Coco's corner: 27 July

What on earth is going on? No, I am NOT talking about the jet stream. We dealt with that last week. I am talking about the book with the nasty, cheaplooking silk tie on the cover.

Apparently there is a law that says that no one can read anything else this year, and all journalists must write about this book at least once (and this will be the first and last time I mention it). Bookshops are trolleying it in by the thousand. Small bookshops in the shires are opening their doors at 9.30am to admit a stampede of yummy mummies, desperate to get their hands on it. Many are removing their important histories of the Second World War from the window display and putting handcuffs and chains and sundry repulsive items there instead. Only a few months ago, I would take the ed in chief home on the Circle Line from Embankment. My mistress would read the Evening Standard. Everyone else would be reading it too. But now they're all glued to the cheap, shiny silk-tie book.

Now, I happen to know that the editor of ES is unkeen on WiFi in the Underground. She thinks it will sound the death knell for the Standard, which is doing well at the moment. I think she's wrong. The thing that is killing publishing, and will destroy the London Evening Standard, is not WiFi. It's That Book. Mark my words.

Coco

Office Dog

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