Tuesday 19 April 2011

Blank Book

An 'entrepreneur', or at least what passes for it in our age has published a 'book' with a catchy title; 'What Every Man Thinks About Apart From Sex'. He hired a PR firm to promote his 'book'and they got it up to number 44 in the amazon ratings; apparently, at one point it was selling faster than Harry Potter. Congratulations! one might say, except that the book is completely blank and is described as blank in the sales' literature; it has 200 blank pages so, even as a blank book, it is light on paper. Publishers all over the world are begging for 'translation rights' and the author describes all his customers as 'bonkers'.

He might have a point. But it all goes to show how sheep-like, nay, lemming-like people seem to be; moreover it gives a very modern twist to Dr Johnson's dictum "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money". As for those of us who struggle to write something that we hope is worthy to be published, well imagine how we feel!

It is, actually, quite distressing to reflect that a 'normal' conscious state these days is one of totally mindless trend-following.

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