State of the nation.

No, not this one. Or that one.

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“A few questions that I need to know” would have been better, but I can’t find that one.

The very first time I heard the term in the title was when I worked at London Records in the mid-90s. We were all taken off to a very big house in the country for a jolly ‘State of the Nation’ update on how things were going, what was coming up for the label, etc.

I have only two memories of the entire thing. The first is of sitting around a big boardroom table and being shown the All Saints video for Never Ever. The second is of being in the pub near the office, drunk (obviously), spotting a fancy pen on the bar, picking it up and dropping it into my bag.

The next day at work, a memo went round that Pete Tong had lost his extremely expensive Mont Blanc pen and if someone had accidentally picked it up could they return it? I was mortified. It’s all gone a bit Pete Tong indeed.¹

(They might have been two entirely different occasions but they are forever linked in my mind.)

(Joe, who is very into Oasis, asked me the other day if the nineties were “really that good.” I’ve read - I think in Sylvia Patterson’s brilliant book, I’m Not With the Band, that, like the sixties, if you remember the nineties you weren’t there. I was there. But working in Legal & Business Affairs.)

So. After my sort-of summer off, I thought I’d write an update on all the books!