“Hillary left 18 million cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling in America. We can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all.”- Sarah Palin
So, there we have it. It’s Governor Sarah Palin from Alaska who will help John McCain dodder up the stairs to the podium at next weeks RNC in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
The [...]

It’s been quite a day for fuck ups, all told
First I discover that I incorrectly spelt ‘Mefenamic acid’ as ‘Methanamic’ acid in the book (kudos to Zoe for spotting - no pun intended).
Then Aaron Sorkin’s researcher pointed out that I’d illustrated my Facebook The Movie post with someone who wasn’t Aaron Sorkin.
And finally, just as [...]

Waterstone’s have just published a Q&A I did with them a couple of weeks ago. Here’s an extract. Follow the link for the whole thing...
They’ve published a slightly amusing profile of me too, here.
* * * *
Paul Carr - author Q and A
Paul Carr on the end of The Bible, whoring, and having a vague [...]

(Quick update: Aaron Sorkin’s researcher, Ian, just pointed out that “whoever that is on your website is not Aaron”. This is what happens when you rely on Google image search. Consider it corrected.)
...
According to a story on Valleywag (now confirmed), Aaron Sorkin has been asked by Sony to write a screenplay based on the history [...]

Yes! It’s that time again. Time again for me to share a Brilliant Idea that I can do nothing with. Time, in other words, for another fun-packed installment of Brilliant Ideas For Other People.
This time: The Long Fail.
You might remember a couple of weeks back that I bought up the domain name ‘TheLongFail.com‘ on the [...]

Do you know what’s weird? Working in a hotel room of a morning, streaming BBC 6 Music for the first time in ages, and suddenly realising that the radio people are talking about you.
That’s weird.
Still, ‘ Unlimited digital thumbs up.’ One for the sidebar quotes, eh?

This copy of the book has so far travelled from London -> San Francisco and now to a hammock in Tahoe.

Photo taken at CampCamp by Eris.

“Until Robert explained to me what a haiku was, I thought you’d just written something shit in the front of my book to be mean.” - Stephanie

Lovely Stephanie. Outside the Spiegeltent. Saturday. Is there anything funnier than when posh girls go Street?

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(Sorry - just [...]

Finally hooking up with the Champagne was a mini adventure in itself.
A gift from my (brilliant, lovely, etc) publisher to mark publication of The Book, it was originally delivered to me c/o Adam Street before embarking on a ridiculous up-country relay, ending up in a rather excellent Edinburgh restaurant where Richard O’Connor had thoughtfully arranged [...]

MacBook - check.
Blackberry - check.
iPod - check.
Hello there. You find me packing once again, this time to head north of the border to the Edinburgh Book festival (do come and see me if you’re around - details here).
With every new leg of the journey, it’s the same check list as I tuck everything into its [...]

Another half-week, and still Amazon are arsing about with the book. Emails continue to tumble into my inbox from people who are waiting for pre-orders, and now post-orders, non of which seem to have been delivered.
It really is fucking unbelievable.
Other emails tumbling into my inbox - from both inside and outside the UK - include [...]

Waiting for Zoe outside the Somerset House screening of Doctor Strangelove the other week, Sarah and I watched a chap from the Socialist Worker trying to get people to sign a ’stop the war’ petition.
He was wearing sunglasses and skinny jeans. He looked like a total cock.
Rule number one when trying to make eye-contact with [...]

One of my favourite sites in the world is someecards.com - an electronic greetings site created by some former writers for The Onion. I love everything about them - the slogans, obviously, but also the classsic illustrations they use. They’re just perfect.
In fact, they’re so perfect that when I wanted to send an ultra-personalised card [...]

From the Press Association review of Bringing Nothing that has just arrived in my inbox (thanks for the tip, Katya)...

“Although the title might sound slightly nauseating, author Paul Carr is a surprisingly witty writer. His tall tales about trying to start an internet company, nights spent on the tiles with dot com millionaires, and his [...]

...could they not find a dictionary?
In Borders, Charing Cross Road, my book is proudly displayed in the ‘Biograhpy’ [sic] section.
Awesmoe.

(Thanks to Zoe for the spot)

I’m just about to run out of the door to a meeting but just time to share two emails that I’ve just received.
First, perhaps in response to my post about Amazon, or perhaps by total coincidence, Helen emails to tell me that she ordered her copy of The Book from WHSmiths Online yesterday, and it [...]

Further to this, Amazon have emailed me back...
“Mr Carr.
Thank you for contacting Amazon.co.uk,
Your book is in stock but it is coming from one of secondary warehouses. Because of this there is  currently an extended delivery date for your book. We expect to have your book in stock in one of our primary warehouses around the [...]

Ask any author and they’ll tell you: one of the best feelings in the world is the first time you see your new book in an actual book shop.
It’s not an ego thing - not entirely, anyway - but rather much-needed proof that this thing; This Thing that you spent all those months working on, [...]

sometimes when the screen hurts my eyes
or some memory of
a past love distracts me
from a vital task
I’ll read a book. Like the biography of
Charles Bukowski
I found in Waterstone’s on Monday.
I’d forgotton how
profoundly his poetry
annoys the living shit out of me.

Ladies and gentlemen... prrrresenting the British iJustine... (because God knows we needed one)... Miss.... Hermoine... Way...

(See Hermoine’s review of my party on her new blog)

I’ve spent the last couple of days taking advantage of my briefish stay in the UK to catch up with a couple of billion pieces of admin that were hard to sort from outside of +44.
Banks, credit cards, tax, phones - all are now either sorted or well on the way, which makes me feel [...]

Having a manic, manic day - but just time to say that I am now the proud owner of...
TheLongFail.com
Two questions...
One: how on EARTH was that domain available? I mean seriously.
and
Two: what the heck should I do with it now?
Answers on a Twittercard.

“I looked back at the arrest, possible fraud conviction, the Hotel California incident with Google; offending Ricky at Adam Street, getting drunk at the Nibbies, nearly getting jailed for contempt of court, being named and shamed by the Evening Standard - and on and on and on. For a journalist they were all brilliant stories [...]

The most read story on Media Guardian (online) today is Jemima Kiss’ excellent piece on the ‘relocation’ of Kingswood Warren - the BBC’s main research and development centre - from Surrey to White City.
Apparently the BBC owning a stately mansion in the country is considered wasteful and unnecessary - so the 100-odd-strong R&D team are [...]

Welcome one, welcome all to the very first installment of a feature I like to call ‘The Sunday Afternoon Fuck-Up Round-Up‘ - a weekly place to correct any factual and typographical errors found in The Book.
Well, hopefully less than weekly. Hopefully monthly. Or bi-annually. But we’ll see.
First up - a doozy. Emily Dubberley is featured [...]

As a conservative estimate, by the time The Book went to press, I’d probably read and re-read the text four hundred billion times.
My method of writing was to start at around 6pm - after a day of procrastination - and to work through the night, powering through a few thousand words without stopping. Except to [...]

When I was permanently based in London and so couldn’t avoid having a copy of The London Paper forced into my hands every day, one of the few sections of the paper I made a habit of reading was Zoe Strimpel’s dating column, Girl About Town.
In fact, my reading habit was as follows: the ‘Em’ [...]

For those of you who couldn’t bring yourself to bring yourself to the party the other night, here’s a video from Zoe to give you a taste of what you missed.

Well, here we go then. The book is out. People have started seeing it in shops. There’s no going back now. These are just some of the reasons I’ve spent the entirety of the last week drunk.
The majority of people I know have commented on how excited I must be by publication, while only a [...]

I thought I’d tried every possible channel - The Emails, The Twitters, The Texts - even very briefly rejoining The Facebook - but I still keep hearing from friends that ‘[so and so] says they didn’t get an invite to Thursday’s launch party. Are they not invited?’
Gaaaaah. Just when I think I’ve reached everyone I [...]

“I’m not nervous. Well, maybe I was a bit...concerned but that’s not the same thing” - William Goldman, The Princess Bride

I know it’s not very cool of me to do two posts about one three minute slot - it’s only fucking television, right? - but something odd happened  on Thursday - and I’m hoping that [...]

I’m going to write a proper post about this later - my first time in a TV studio (I was a talking head for Newsround once, years ago, but they came to me) - but meantime, here’s the video of my very brief Sky News appearance last night...

It’s on the Sky News Blog too.