Up to London yesterday, for the Hachette Children’s Books Christmas Party. It did feel a little early and not very seasonal. Perhaps annual get together is a better term. Seeing all the old faces and meeting a few of the new ones is so important it doesn’t rally ,matter what you call it.

Marlene Johnson, The Managing Director, gave us a pep talk and urged us to blog and tweet and twitter. Many asked me if I blogged and when I said yes wondered what on Earth I find to blog about. Well, that, of course is the problem. There are times when I wonder why I bother, but something inside me nags away to just post that idea.

Partly it’s a diary of ideas and thoughts that I find quite interesting to go back over. Partly it’s my only way of shouting at the world and telling it how it should be done. Partly it’s PR. Partly self-indulgent self-egrandisement, but mostly it’s because I can and something makes me keep on doing it.

There was a lot of talk about digital. Thos of us who have been crying in the wilderness all these years, who have done have done the work and actually understand the business of online are saying don’t touch it with a bargepole. Those who are being seduced by the possibility that the world of online publishing of downloads is nearly here are getting all excited – not realising that they are about to be consigned to the scrap heap unless they can learn a whole new bag of trix.

With the advent of Adobe Flash CS5 exporting straight to iPhone app, 2010 could turn out to be a very interesting year in the world of publishing.

On the way home I came across a little bit of flooding at Piccadilly Circus and took the picture above. The underground was closed at Paddington which meant walking in a downpour from Edgeware Rd was not a happy bunny, but I did manage to buy one of the last remaining rolls of kitchen towel at Sainsbury’s and dry myself off.

I’d had a terrible nights sleep with a cold and cough and woke very early. As I wandered down Oxford Street Christmas shopping, I marveled at all the new eating opportunities. Food from all over the world was available yet, hungry as I was, nothing tempted me. I wandered up to the British Museum to see the Staffordshire Hoard, and was finally seduced into an Itailian eaterie in Museum Stree, by a board outside that promised egg, bacon, sausage, chips and beans or tomato with toast and tea or coffee for £4.95. Sometime only a plate of filth hits the spot – hooray for great English cuisine!