Sunny spells more powerful than magic ones as Sunshine whops Harry Potter's speccy wizard butt.

Forgive me. I've just heard my beach stunt on Broadway Market for the last bank holiday was so successful it's given me best-seller status*, with my book OUTSELLING THE LATEST HARRY POTTER*. Yes, whilst the latest wizard waffle was published last summer, with a huge international advertising budget behind it, my book has been out 3 sunny weeks now, has had as much marketing spend as the local scout jamboree, yet has pipped the speccy spellster's latest in the best-seller charts*. You'd crow too if it happened to you.

East Londoners are voting with their feet evidently. Not for them the pot-boiling puerility of the Rowling industry, but honest local fare, by local authors pouring their honest heart-felt toil into their works. Supporting local produce, full of hearty, heart-warming, nourishment. Nurtured by the benevolent rays of the East End sun, and fanned by the gentle zephyrs of amateur publicity puffing. Is it too far fetched to see this as the spirit of the Blitz reasserting itself? Plucky East Enders standing up to the boastful boschfulness of the publishing megabrands. Resiting the tyrannical doodlebugging carpet-bombing tactics of the sinister book-peddlers, who'd have us believe there is only one book in the world (or 2 counting the Da Vinci Crud). Well, that won't happen here, and the mega-sales* sensation of the Sunshine spirit of independence and integrity has proven this.

Let us go forward together.

* At the Broadway Bookshop, based upon sales to date. All statements are accurate at time of posting, and are based upon information provided by the Broadway Bookshop. The author is wholly responsible for all hyperbole, self-engrandisement and potential defamation of respected members of the publishing industry, and his views noway reflect those of the Broadway Bookshop or its subsidiaries. All hyperbole, self-engrandisement and defamation are the result of a hangover. The supplier of the alcohol The London Review of Books Bookshop, where the author ligged a fair amount of free plonk last night, is not responsible for the author's condition and resulting views. It is however responsible for not having a copy of his book, and being rather sniffy about whether they would stock it or not. Which led him to seek solace in the bottle they so readily plied at their event. Indirectly therefore, scarcity of book and abundance of wine resulted in the author's need to assert his worth in this posting.

O, we did like to be beside the seaside

The launch of Sunshine at the Broadway Bookshop on Saturday was a roaring success. Friends and punters turned up, books were sold. Someone tried to nick the yellow icecream tricycle kindly lent by Lock7 cafe and bike shop to drum up trade. A two year old knocked over my sand castle (I'm thinking of doing a Charles Atlas course to square up to him). Folk got drunk, and the beach was left in chaos by the end of the day.

But best of all, the kind old sun put his kiss-me-quick hat on, and kep it on all day. Kissed us all, and bestowed his blessings on a day dedicated to his celebration.

Hip Hip Horray.

Guaranteed Sunshine at the Broadway Bank Holiday Beach Bonanza

A Bank Holiday weekend looms, and if the current weather is anything to go by, will typically thwart the cherised hopes of a sun-starved nation. But, despair not. A jolly day at the seaside, offering all the traditional delights of a traditional British Bank Holiday, with the addition of GUARANTEED SUNSHINE can be had on Saturday May 3rd in front of The Broadway Bookshop, Broadway Market, London E8.

To celebrate the publication of my book Sunshine, the 8ft by 3.5ft of pavement belonging to the Bookshop will be transformed into an urban beach with a difference. It will be the smallest and most depressingly British urban beach in London. Not your trendy, Shoreditch, meterosexual chillout ambient vibefest, but a plucky British seaside stalwart of yesteryear, complete with men in knotted hankies, belles in kiss-me-quicks, wind-breakers, tartan rugs, thermos flasks and 'musn't grumbles'. Hell, I'm not even sure we will have any sand. But it's the spirit that counts. And by golly, we'll have bags of that down Broadway that day. Weather permitting? Pah! We'll bring our own, sir.

So, stop me and buy one at: The Broadway Bookshop, Broadway Market, London E8; Saturday May 3rd, 10.30 - until I get moved on by the Council. Broadway Market: It’s so bracing.