I received the last catalogue from Hampstead House Books today, bidding farewell after 40 years of selling remaindered and retired books, new but unsold (plus a few CDs, DVDs, and VIDEOs). I used to buy quite a few books from them, mainly women's diaries for my collection, but there haven't been many of those for a while. More recently, very large, hard cover (but still obscure) women's diaries are being published - and sold, I guess - by big publishing houses, So Hampstead House Books have not ushered them into obscurity. HHB once offered a couple of my books, to my surprise, because my publisher hadn't let me know. (It's standard in a contract that the writer gets first dibs when the publisher decides to remainder the book.) When I brought this to the accountant's attention, he just said , "Sorry about that." It's a form of abuse. Anyway, I bought some of my books, cheaper than my author's discount.

It's very sad for a writer to look over remainder tables and even worse to read a whole catalogue of books that didn't make it on the retail market. Makes you wonder if perhaps there are too many books being published, or, as is increasingly the case, that there aren't enough readers. Then you take a look at some of the titles and you wonder how on earth some of them ever got published in the first place. They don't now, actually, get published, not in print; they appear as e-books.

I found a title that amazed me: How To Iron a Shirt: "A collection of 500 useful tips and tricks." For a shirt?? 265 pages, with illustrations. ONLY $2,99.

I'm gob-smacked.*

*ORIGIN 1980s: from gob3 + smack1, with reference to being shocked by a blow to the mouth, or to clapping a hand to one's mouth in astonishment.

Missed another day, did too much yesterday.

I've had a response to my request for examples of folklore lost to us for easy reference. One friend cited an expression she has used that no one seems to recognize any more. "Shit brindle brown" I use it, too, without brown. Self-explanatory. But it's not folklore, not like Aesop's Fables or Hollywood movies; it's just fallen out of use.

As for that, it would be wise for us elders to stop using expressions that date us. My first lesson in this came from a friend when we were at college. She said that in order to sound younger than you are, you have to forget the names of erstwhile stars. Her example was "Who's Warner Baxter?" Today, I guess you have to ask "Who's Cary Grant?" Is he still a legend, and alive because of old movies? BTW, my favourite is Notorious. Did you know that Hitchcock got around the Hayes Office ruling limiting the length of a kiss on screen (to 14 seconds) by having Ingrid Bergman and Grant in an embrace while he's on the phone? They embrace while he listens to his caller but the embracing and nuzzling go on between 14-second kisses. It's very hot.

Who's Rock Hudson?

But I digress.

The same vigilance about dating yourself must continue with your customary expressions, often taken from current commercials. What happens if the commercial is no longer current? No one knows what you're talking about, you old fuddy-duddy (related to another old expression with historic significance). I used to cite a former Certs ad when I met someone I hadn't seen for a few years. You know how you try to match your memory of someone from your past with the person in front of you now. As you reconcile the two images you say,"You haven't changed a bit!" Well, she has, but remember - you probably don't remember - the Certs commercial that says: "It's two, two, two Certs in one." I don't say that any more because no one knows what I'm talking about.

Marshall MCluhan once said, "The price of eternal vigilance is indifference." I disagree, and I actually had the opportunity to tell him so (that's another story). Because the price of eternal vigilance is eternal vigilance. You can't ever let up.

"Don't give a inch." Was that Ken Kesey?

Who?