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Apologies for the month-long hiatus. It's been a busy few weeks, but a happy few weeks as well, in the sense that it's a huge relief to have the book out and be able to watch it make its way in the world, even if there are few stumbles along the way.

Most of the people I've spoken to over the last month will, at some point, ask how the book's going, to which I don't always know what to say. The publishers don't really give you a daily update on sales as they don't have one themselves - though you can check your amazon sales ranking. Obsessively. This can only end in tears. No matter how high you soar there comes a point, even if your first initials are J. K. and you have a thing about wizards, that your rating begins to drop, and the unbearable helplessness of knowing there's sweet fa you can do to try and turn the tide, short of buying the book yourself, makes Amazon sales-ranking-checking a Bad Thing To Get Hooked On. And yes, I've been there.

There have been a handful of reviews so far, including one by Tina Jackson in Metro, and the nicest one yet in the TLS, by Josh Raymond. Sadly I can't find it online. The pull-out quote was: 'an intelligent and encouraging piece of writing.' Thelondonpaper did a Q and A, Gay Times liked it, so did Vogue, Tatler, Traveller Magazine and the Western Daily Press. However, Harry Mount in the Literary Review did not. More on that and how some (often more conservative) reviewers can turn against it later.

Articles I've done concerning the book - there's one about hermits, most of all Sue Woodcock and Tom Leppard that appeared yesterday in the Independent on Sunday. Several to follow in the coming weeks.

People in the book - Chris Eubank has just put his kids up for adoption. King Arthur started a protest outside Stone Henge, after performing a ceremony to make sure there was no rain during Glastonbury (which seems to have worked). Vivienne Westwood walked out of the Sex and the City premiere, saying there was nothing remotely memorable or interesting about what she saw. I love her for that. The film is apparently one long product placement for a number of different labels, including hers. Sebastian Horsley's book Dandy in the Underworld got an excellent and sympathetic review in the Guardian which, as he has since explained, means his life is essentially over. 'It's now one long descent into respectability.' We're doing our talk together at Camp Bestival at 8.40, Friday 18 July. In the Comedy Tent. Help.

More later in the week I think



Also here's a snap of Pete Doherty I took last year. He played a great set at Glastonbury, apparently. Even the Sun liked it..

good news

For the first time in what seems like ages Pete Doherty, one of the stars of In Search of the English Eccentric, was in the tabloids without being portrayed as the drug-addled unwashed Son of Sam that some red tops like to make him out as. The story was about the fact that he had to bury one of his cats before going onstage.

Videotape, Youtube, Moral Turpitude

I've found Arthur's video- or rather someone else found it and passed it on to me. This is a relief. The tape was in a box at a film production company's office and looked set to see out its days in there until the box was opened accidentally, which means I can, in theory, look him in the eye again.

With the kind of symmetry that I like, only hours after getting my hands on his compilation tape of former tv appearances I was able to upload a brand new piece about Arthur. It's the pick of the footage shot by me and Hels (lover) over the last four months. I do the camerawork. She does the sound. We both ask questions and nod politely. I think the section at the end of this clip is really moving.

In other news In Search of the English Eccentric, I've edited my chat with Sebastian Horsley about Moral Turpitude and being eccentric into this; the nation's favourite jailbird has been moved into a secure unit after prison staff learnt of a plot to do him in; and Vivienne Westwood has just launched a new line of shoes in collaboration with Melissa (who is not a person but one of the leading lights in Brazilian footwear, I'm told).

I had dinner with someone called Sebastian Mary this week. Sebastian Mary blogs a lot. She has more blogs than pairs of shoes. She said that when it came to writing blogs the key was to keep it to three paragraphs, or less, and always include a picture... So. If I can't do three paragraphs, I can at least put up a picture. Here are Dame Vivienne's new shoes. The silver one is best if you ask me. And I think we need one of Arthur,

In the beginning there was Pete

Here is the first of twelve etchings that I've been working on over the last four months. It's of Pete Doherty, based on a photo I took backstage moments before Babyshambles played a gig in Birmingham at the National Indoor Arena. 'You pick your moments, don't you,' were the words that had just left his lips when the shutter opened.

I've etched him into copper, before inking him up and printing him onto some 19th century hand-made laid paper.

But why? - why bother going to all that trouble instead of just using a photo? Because I wanted to imitate/emulate Sydney Parkinson, one of the principle artists to accompany Captain Cook on his voyage to the south seas in the late 18th century. This moment in history was also when the word 'eccentric' first appeared in the English literary and cultural landscape. In writing In Search of... I've tried to use a late 18th century understanding of the word and apply it to a 21st century setting. So with this etching, similarly, a late 18th century lens is used to present a contemporary icon. Also I wanted to emulate this man's work because of the way he depicted his subjects. Most were Pacific islanders, men or women who had never seen white Western Europeans before, avatars of the unknown for an English public who would later see the prints, so for Parkinson there'd have been a temptation to show them as exotically wierd, alien, unusual, Other. He doesn't. See below. Instead he renders them familiar. There's something entirely unthreatening about the expression of this guy- 'a Chief of New Zealand, the face curiously tatowd, or mark'd, according to their manner'. I guess in an identical sense, having met them, I didn't want to portray the people I had interviewed as odd or in some way alien, and I think there's a temptation of sorts to do this when writing a book about English eccentrics.