Here are a few which have recently caught my eye (each one worthy of a blog on its own):
0 – The number of goals scored in the most recent Arsenal – Manchester United match (also the number of winners of the EuroMillions jackpot in the past few weeks).
15 – The number of years it has taken Hilary Spurling to complete her two-volume biography of Matisse (short-listed for the 2006 Whitbread Book of the Year Award).
34 – The percentage of the UK Christmas retail market for leisure gifts and electrical items attributed to “online” sales (mostly Amazon). While Dixons and other High Street retailers continue to lose market share to online vendors there is an exceptional electronic product that doesn’t fare so well on Amazon – plasma TV screens.
62 – The number of wretched Liberal Democrat MPs wasting their time and the taxpayers money at Westminster.
90 – It was in the ninetieth minute that Leicester knocked Tottenham Hotspurs out of the FA Cup (on the same day that Nigel Clough’s wonderful, spirited Burton Albion team survived for over 90 minutes against Manchester United earning themselves a replay at Old Trafford).
6,500 – The number of Civil Servants currently employed by the ODPM (John Prescott’s Office of the Deputy Prime Minister).
20,930 – The number of blogs being posted each hour to one of the larger blog-sites (not this one).
76,144,000,000 – NHS expenditure budget (in pounds) 2005/2006.
1,130,000,000,000 – Current estimated level of consumer debt (in pounds) in the UK.
2006 Review of Books
As I finish books in 2006 (however dull, bad, cheap, pornographic, literary, highbrow, lowbrow) I’ll try and write a few lines of appreciation – or not.
Back Hander by John Francome (Headine £6.99)
Two out of ten! I’ve enjoyed all Dick Francis’s horse-racing thrillers and picked this up to see how well Francome compares (after all there are some 15 Francome books in print and many are described as bestsellers). The book is fairly well plotted but somehow it is neither well written, nor successfully edited.
There used to be rumours about Dick Francis and his writing. It was said that his wife was the clever one who crafted the fast-flowing narratives from Dick’s ideas and first drafts. But it was only ever rumour. Although the covers proudly proclaim Francome as sole author of the Back Hander, the copyright page tells a slightly different story – Copyright © 2004 John Francome and Mike Bailey. So who is this Mike Bailey, not a ghostwriter surely? If so, he's not a master of his craft. Whatever the answer the book took me an age (and considerable determination) to finish and I’m not rushing out to buy other Francome thrillers.
