Get out you timewasting bastards, bye bye bye

I like books, and have a tendency to be Irish and Eeyoreish. If I wasn't paid to talk about books, I'd have liked to run a bookshop.

So obviously, my bookshop would have been just like this one, from one of my favourite series of all time, Black Books. The link is to particularly good scenes: bloody Channel 4 have blocked embedding.

Sssshhhh…

The Guardian has a piece today on how to arrange your book collection. They're very scornful of my chosen method: alphabetical. Actually, mine's alphabetical for anything bought more than two years ago. They go from floor to ceiling on all four walls, including the 20,000+ vinyl records, but not the CDs, which are stored here and there. Everything else is piled in any space on top of properly shelved books. Then there are vertical columns of books behind the wardrobe, a 1m x 1m x 1m cube of unread books on the floor, then some piled randomly, then a stuffed bookcase at work and a few piles on my desk.

One of the wittily contentious things this article proposes is how to arrange your library to attract people.

The "I'm desperate for a shag', female version

Doesn't really require books – it's the last thing a man will notice. But on the off-chance you bring someone home who can read, it might be an idea temporarily to lose anything too intimidating by Andrea Dworkin.

Unless you're a lesbian, in which case you might like to put it on the coffee table.

Ladies: do not listen to this at all. Should I ever enter your house (that isn't entendre, by the way), I'll go straight for your bookshelves. I may well read a book or two right then and there. Or I'll leave in high dudgeon having seen Dan Brown, Coelho, or others of that ilk. Critical theory particularly appreciated.

What systems do you use? One or two of you, I know, will say that one's piled on top of the other one, but this is for the rest of you. Size? Genre? Degree of affection? Mark uses the Dewey Decimal system, which I respect. I'll use it when I finally get a place with enough room. I'd like a poetry corner, though that smacks of ghettoisation a little. A proper library in dark wood with a rolltop escritoire, ladders on runners, a wood fire, squashy armchairs and a card index. Someone snoozing in one corner as rain beats on the windows, a marmoset nibbling on a Jeffrey Archer in the other (my version of a shredder). A clock ticks, Radio 4 mumbles warmly from concealed speakers, a violin case sits on a side table and on another Marmite on crumpets await. I of course will be wearing a dark, three-piece tweed suit and a tie knitted by Anne Shirley, who's finally dumped that awful Gilbert cad (he turned out to have been a devotee of 'Hunnish practices').

Or, an ultra-modern German/Scandinavian-style glass and steel building, zero-carbon, naturally-ventilated, Passivhaus machine for reading in, perched on a cliff overlooking one of Norway's fjords.

Well, it beats Whitmore Reans: my place look's like Bernard's back room in Black Books, which is funny because he's right about everything as much as David Mitchell

Ale and hearty

Morning all. Well, it's 2.30 but feels like the morning to me, as I took half the day off. I didn't even go swimming.

I had a quiet drink in my local, beautiful, Victorian gin-palace last night. Amazingly, pretty much everyone I know turned up, presented me with brilliant, thoughtful presents, and supplied me with as many foaming jugs of ale as I could manage. Laura's Nun Bowling set was pressed into much use, and I also received lots of book tokens, a pristine copy of Harold Laski's Faith, Reason and Civilisation from Alan and Helen (I collect Left Book Club volumes), a compass from Keiti and Co., some ace SF from Gabi, and British Potters' Marks from Emma. The reasoning behind that was my Stoke connections and a determination not to buy a book I already have! My colleagues forsook their partners and children, John came over from Shrewsbury and I was overwhelmed with everybody's kindness, so thanks. I'm especially grateful to the advice on how to meet girls from Gabi and Penny (the university's leading Women's Studies expert, and therefore One Who Knows).

I wasn't, therefore, feeling altogether hale this morning, hence the laziness. Neal and Dan cooked a fine, if unorthodox breakfast of mutton chops, aubergines, mushrooms and poached eggs, then I wandered into university to find that I had to go to union negotiating committee, which really did end the festivities. Now on with my PGCE essay…

If you go down to the woods today (redux)

Morning all. How was your day of from my incessant, vacuous ranting? Thanks to Emma for keeping me updated with cricket scores. England + Wales/Australia sounded like fun, and Ireland hammered Kenya!

We went to Cannock Chase for a good long ramble. No dogging involved at all. It's a weird place. Some of it is horrible commercial timber plantation, some bits are quite bleak, while other areas are idyllic. We saw green woodpeckers, buzzards, kestrels, rabbits, lots of bilberries and two types of deer (roe and fallow). Needless to say, they all evaded my camera very impressively - here are a couple of snatched shots of shy deer. The Map Twats didn't get away quite so easily - the full set's here

Obviously, being in the woods and on the heath didn't preclude me from buying books: Oxfam in Stafford is very impressive. I picked up an oldish translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, Nancy Mitford's lightweight Voltaire In Love, Michael Frayn's witty A Landing on the Sun and two very throwaway books for summer reading: The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies and Michael Dobbs' House of Cards.

Smile you bastards, or you're sacked

Sometimes the most oppressive aspects of life are the most stupid - Keihin Electric Express Railway Company are assessing their employees to make sure they're smiling properly and frequently, using some software

Railway workers of Japan: rise up, scowl, and overthrow the tyranny of enforced false joy! Our masters pay us to facilitate their profits. They have enough power without demanding that we pretend to enjoy it - it's an attempt to take over your souls.

Here in the UK, grumpy shop assistants are a cultural strength, from Open All Hours to Fawlty Towers to Black Books, never mind the distinct brand of misery dispensed by transport officials. Why should people on the minimum wage be forced to smile through the inanity and stupidity of the great British public? I respect the strength of mind of any employee who refuses to engage in this fraudulent attempt to persuade us that suffering terrible conditions on low pay is somehow the fulfilment of all their fantasies. Furthermore, the grumpy employee reminds us that there's a human in that uniform, not a robot on whom we can unload all our frustrations. They can treat us as badly with full legal immunity - they can't build enjoying it into our contracts.

So next time you're treated dismissively, rudely or surlily by a man or woman in a neon nylon suit, remind yourself that this is an act of class warfare and applaud their brave stand against the tyranny of simulated joy. Unhappiness is your right and mine.