DIARY
An English teacher recently told me she had been reading one of the stories in my new collection, which she had seen in Dillon's, and had enjoyed. I modestly enquired, then, whether she had bought the book in the hope of enjoying more. Her answer was quite shocked. 'Certainly not. I always read fiction in a shop.' Her husband, what's more, shares this peculiar habit. He told me he had 'skimmed through' the whole of Candia McWilliam's first novel in Blackwell's. Sadly, I know of several other academics who boast of speed-reading through books on display. This extremely-grim-for-authors state of affairs prompts the thought that maybe bookshops should employ the same method of selling as Marks and Spencers' make-up department: thus each author's pile of books would be topped with a 'test' copy for copious reading. If a customer wanted to buy one, he would take a book from below, protected by a sealed cover. While this method might do nothing to increase sales, at least non speed-readers would be sure of pristine copies.
I've often dallied with the idea of starting a bookshop of my own in one of the many bookless areas of the country. Norfolk, perhaps, from where I write. To satisfy a sudden desire to get Sebastian Faulks's The Girl at the Lion d'Or, having scoured the coast and more intellectual inland parts, I had to send to London. Anyhow, should my own bookshop come about, I would have strict rules applying to employees. First, they would be made to take a very simple test about authors. Had they heard of any apart from Jeffrey Archer and Joan Collins? A poor response would mean no job. Next, a contract would include the stipulation that all employees were obliged to read book reviews in a variety of national newspapers and literary periodic- als. They would then be sure of keeping in touch with customers who are guided by reviews. Such harsh rules would be the result of many years of frustration trying to buy even well known books. An assistant in Blackwell's poetry department had nev- er heard of The Rattle Bag (Hughes and Heaney), surely one of the best poetry anthologies for years. In the 'dynamic' new Dillon's in Oxford, when I enquired if they sold The Spectator, the reply was, 'I don't know that book.' Should any bookshops take up my desperate suggestions, I feel confident they would have the support and gratitude of many readers who actually want to buy books.
Burnham Market is a pretty inland village in Norfolk, Georgian houses over- looking the Green, generous planting of ANGELA HUTH
chestnut trees. Over the last 20 years it has undergone transformation typical of many such places once they have been disco- vered by the Puffa waistcoat set, that seasonal tribe who zoom in from June to September, daily queuing for their lattice- work-pastry homemade pies to ease the problem of cooking on holiday. On a sunless afternoon I took my eight-year-old daughter there in search of a board game — nothing exotic, Ludo or Scrabble would have done. We found other parents and children in similar pursuit. The newsagent having but a thin plastic line in toys, we tried the gift shops. There are four gift shops in Burnham Market, rich in Liberty prints, soap ballet shoes, pretentious key rings and so on. But no basic toys or essentials. I've never actually seen a Puffa lashing out on a porcelain thimble for a fellow Puffa, but suppose this must be the case, or why would so many gift people compete in so small a place? And what — chilling thought — happens to gift shops in winter? Do they rely on the small band of local residents to crave beribboned bags of fudge in November? 'We do very nicely, thank you,' one saleslady told me, who also runs a brisk line in herbaceous hats. 'Summer people come in winter. We rely on tourists: there's no other industry here.' I suppose many villages can only survive by such gift packaging of their souls. But I do hope the Burnham Market ironmonger will resist being taken over by his fancier neighbours. At the moment, with his shin- ing spades and lengths of rope, he's the last reminder of a simpler village life, before tourists' demands for quilted cottages to go over lavatory rolls had not overtaken more humble requests for Ludo.
Earlier this year I found myself ski-ing down a mountain beside an eminent depu- ty editor, and noticed his quite remarkably handsome teeth. Feeling a compliment would not come amiss, I spoke my thoughts. Aha, he confessed, they were the result of a little cosmetic dentistry. This was cheering news, for the week before I, had been measured up for four 'gloves (quite different from caps) to go over the front teeth — technical name, porcelain enamel veneers. In my case, I swear, it was nothing to do with vanity, but to counter- act yet another element of the ageing process — namely, thinning enamel. If the NHS think you have a good enough case, you can get them a good deal cheaper than privately. Luckily, I had a good case. The process is simple and painless. Once the plaster mould had been made, my dentist sent me to a thriving little dental labora- tory near Thame. There I met a master of his craft, whose chief concern was an artistic match of colour. He showed me a ,colour chart. I dithered over a whiter shade of pale. 'Most people point to that,' he said, 'but I'm afraid A3 is the more average reality.' A3 was an alarming shade of dinge which he tactfully persuaded me to have, so that the new veneers would not put the old teeth in the shade, as it were. Later, in his workshop, I watched him working with minute brushes, as skilfully as a Meissen master, 'naturalising' veneers before they were fired in a tiny kiln. Three weeks later I was confronted by the results of superb British dental craftsmanship: four pearly slivers of enamel lay in a box like false nails. Now that they are installed, I'm delighted with the result. Few others have noticed. 'Had a face lift?' asked one friend. 'Cut your hair?' It seems that unless you do something really dire nobody ever notices teeth.
aving often visited Trafalgar House, in Wiltshire, setting for Chelworth, I have found the series essential viewing. Good story, good acting, pity about the sartorial and design irritations. Surely such houses do not leave their grand dining-rooms uncarpeted, or paper them with bedroom wallpaper rampant with birds and flowers, forcing the Old Masters to put up a fight for attention? Then who has ever seen an earl in a spotless detective's mackintosh in the country? Or guests at a Wiltshire drinks party in Dynasty clothes? When you consider how excellent most period detail usually is on television, it's odd that over and over again contemporary settings and clothes, blatantly wrong, are left to cause visual annoyance in otherwise quite con- vincing productions.
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