Tuesday, December 6, 2011

I see once again I repeated myself on the 3rd. Such carelessness, Made up for it by publishing Blogs two days running. Today’s Blog is mainly about money – other people’s – so what’s unusual about that? It’s just that I thought some items in the paper quite interesting. Firstly I am back again hammering publishers who seem to have lost all sense of decorum and must surely now, like the film industry, be run by Philistine accountants whose only interest is how much profit a book will generate. Never mind content, never mind relevance, never mind literacy, never mind style, never mind intelligent writing, just think of all that lovely lolly rolling in. The author is a celeb, a VIP. They might only be famous for fifteen minutes so cash in while you can. I’m sure I went on about this before but what got me thinking about this yet once again was the news that the Duchess of Cambridge’s younger sister Pippa Middleton (she just had to be named Pippa – doesn’t it conjure up the King’s Road?) has pocketed £400000 for evidently writing a manual on entertaining. And what nuggets of wisdom does the book hold for the avid reader? Well now, this is what I read - party tips – ‘To be a social hit make sure you have the right equipment: a lovely big sister.’ Wow, how about that? Each and every aspiring party goer who wants to be a hit has to produce another Kate Middleton aka Duchess of Cambridge. I bet Her Maj is really thrilled to bits to read that little bit of wisdom, perhaps asking herself just what she has allowed into the house of Windsor. ‘Get her to marry the heir to the throne.’ Have you ever in your life read such rubbish? ‘Remember bumpkins, it’s napkins, not serviettes and serve the peanuts before the pud.’ I guess this is meant to be humorous? This is wit? This is worth nearly half a million quid? This is reputedly her ‘first book’. Can’t wait for the second. And talking of seconds and thirds whatever happened to Wayne Rooney’s autobiography in half a dozen or so parts for which he was paid the most enormous advance. The first volume seems too have died a death so maybe no more will be forthcoming. Spending your young life kicking a football around, throwing a temperament, and having it off with ladies of the night doesn’t really amount to very much to write about I suppose, and the lovely wife has been into the literary trough as well. Any more to come from her I wonder? News of expensive handbags is always so fascinating.

I keep getting e-mails from various organisations and charities asking for donations. I would love to give, in particular where animals are concerned. Unfortunately at the moment I am just not in the position to respond to these requests even with a small amount, and small amounts I am sure can sometimes produce miracles. This Christmas money is so tight we can’t even afford to send Christmas cards.

It is estimated that Rupert Grint, the third of the principal trio in the Harry Potter films is worth something like £28000000. We’re already aware of what Mister Radcliffe is worth and no doubt Emma Watson is worth a pretty bundle.

The question I ask is, do these lucky kids ever get e-mails asking for donations to charity and do they ever respond? Just curious. A portion of twenty eight million would definitely produce miracles.

Next time the third interesting money story; a phenomenon of our modern world.

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