Loaghtan Books

Spring finally seems to have arrived, even though the sun has forgotten how to be warm.  With the spring has come some unusual visitors to the area around the Loaghtan Books office. Many of you know that the Isle of Man is home to a troop of wild wallabies, descendants of escapees from the Curragh Wildlife Park (our 'zoo').  The Wildlife Park is in the north west of the island, so most of the mob remain roughly in that area. Numbers have been growing of late, however, and some of these antipodean refugees have been venturing further afield.  Loaghtan Books is in the north east of the island and last year we saw the first signs of wallaby incursion.  The senior partner almost ran into one as he was walking up Dreemskerry Hill.  I'm not sure which was more startled. Incidentally, the collective noun for wallabies is a troop, mob or court.  Which you use obviously depends on what mood they're in.

One of the oddest questions retailers ask us is 'what's your minimum order?'. Well... one.  Of course. Obviously we can't sell less than one book; can you imagine it?  'Thank you for the part payment Bookshop X...' snip, snip, snip... 'here is a third of your book'.  Having said that I suppose you could arrange something like that with e-books, but, with one exception ( What Nobody Sees , if you're interested), we don't sell e-books. Come to think of it, books in bits are called serialisations, aren't they? Anyway, I know that some businesses do have a minimum order, but we take the view that the customer is (mostly) always right, so if retailers want one book, we sell them one book.  They can always come back for more, and we do offer discounts for bulk (hint, hint...)

It has been growing more and more difficult to do the work we needed to do on our ancient computer equipment, so we recently re-kitted ourselves. I almost wished we hadn't. Why do computer people change things so much?  I'd transferred all the files and gubbins from the old machine to the new one and just wanted to access them to continue work.  But how to find them?  Nothing looked the same, everything was in different places, and none of the icons looked like they used to. Tentative clicking brought up a box which invited me to personalise my experience.  What exactly does that mean?  If it's my experience surely it's personalised.   I just want to look at my files.   Another box popped up and explained excitedly how the screen was now something-or-other with extra graphic wotsits.  Presumably that's good. I just want to look at my files. A menu dropped down to explain that I could express my mood with different theme colours (what's the colour for grumpy?), a

 The Mangelwurzel cutting carbon output.

We attended an exhibition of model ships in Ramsey Courthouse yesterday.  It was raising funds for the RNLI, which was founded on the Isle of Man two hundred years ago this year.  Model lifeboats weren't the only ones present though.  There were brigs and barques, tugs and tramp steamers, ferries and fishing boats.  It was a really good display. Model boat building is very popular on the Isle of Man, and what was on display was only a fraction of the models available.  The Model Boat Club put on a couple of shows per year, with different exhibits appearing each time.  And it's free!  (Although donations are encouraged and welcome.) Talking about donations, the organisers could teach governments a thing or two about raising revenue.  There were different collection points around, so putting a pound coin in one box got the lifeboat to launch,  in another a coin caused a lifeboat to toss about on the sea, in yet another the lifeboat crew waved at the donor.  Customs and excise sho

The Loaghtan Books office is out in the countryside, which is lovely, but does mean that we occasionally have problems with delivery drivers who can't find us.  We have detailed directions which we email to delivery firms, although whether they actually reach the drivers seems unlikely. A case in point.  Our latest consignment of books was due on Monday.  We knew it was on its way because the driver (who had delivered here before) had telephoned saying he was lost.  We worked out he was only a mile away and there are only three possible roads, so the senior partner phoned with directions and was standing by in case the driver took a wrong turning and needed more.  The junior partner was stationed on the road to wave at truck drivers in case they were him (that was fun!).  He'd be with us in ten minutes, he said. We waited.  And waited.  It had started to rain slightly so the junior partner was getting wet.  The only delivery vehicle she'd seen was a furniture van coming out