And so we reached the end of our first week in the store - a 75-hour week at that! We had 3 'truck days': 2 large trucks arrive at 7am, jam-packed with over 50 pallets, each pallet holding about 40 boxes, each box holding on average 30 books - you do the maths! But by Saturday night it was nearly all on the shelf, and Borders Southampton is about 75% stocked already. We also had daily perodicals deliveries, and Rob had his work cut-out preparing the biggest magazine section in Southampton for opening day.

Matt and myself started ordering books for the local interest section; this is one of the most important parts of the shop to get right - your selection should reflect the community you're in. To that end, we've built one of the most authoritative maritime ranges I've seen in a long-time. If you need a boat book, you know where to come!

Sticking with boats, this week saw us confirm details of another event. Already we have The Levellers performing and signing their new DVD Chaos Theory , Trinny and Susannah on Wednesday 6th, as well as local writers Peter Gluckman and Mark Hanson on Monday 4th, and children's authors Simon Murray , Ian Ogilvy , and Ali Sparkes . And now we've added the amazing Ben Fogle & James Cracknell to the line up.
With all this and an Outside Broadcast by the good folks at Original 106fm it's going to be a busy opening week!

But before all that we've another week of unpacking boxes and preparing the store. Tomorrow afternoon I'm off to Echo HQ to help judge our Bookmark Competition , which has had an amazing response from the schools of Southampton. Then Tuesday morning I'm at Southampton Children's Hospital who are our nominated charity for our Giving Tree - pop in to Borders Southampton from Friday 1st December to find out how you can make Christmas a bit more special for someone at SCH.

Dom's Week

Reading - Not much time for anything this week, but did get through The End , the last in Lemony Snicket's Series Of Unfortunate Events. I love these books and was sorry to reach the end of The End . But, the plot seems to have been left open enough for some more, possibly, please please please!

Listening - Two things stand out this week: Ys by Joanna Newsom and Green Cosmos by Deerhoof . Newsom is a Californian harpist whose new album has been produced by Steve Albini, mixed by Jim O'Rourke, has string arrangements by Van Dyke Parks, and has backing vocals from Bill Callaghan (aka Smog). She's a total original with a broad enough musical taste to appeal to many people. I saw Deerhoof supporting The Flaming Lips in Bournemouth and was blown away. You've got to admire support acts who take risks and don't water down their material for a different audience. They've been around for 12 years and Peel was a fan (of course!). last.fm compare them to Neutral Milk Hotel, The Fiery Furnaces and Broken Social Scene, among others. Best thing to do is give them a listen yourself!

Watching - Sunday afternoon film was A Cock & Bull Story , Steve Coogan's attempt to "film the unfilmable" novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman . Having never read (to my shame) Laurence Sterne's book I can't say how close the film was to the original, but I really enjoyed the film. As with everything I've seen him in, Rob Brydon steals the show, but only just from an excellent Steve Coogan. Inter-textual meta-fiction it may be, and a little uneven at times, but some inspired casting (Gillian Anderson and Stephen Fry also appear) makes it worth watching.