On Saturday 12 July Robert Squirrell, John Mateur and I organised a flashmob reading in Nottingham to celebrate books. This wasn’t intended as a tub thumping rant against library closures, although this is of course part of the debate, rather it was a simple celebration of words, authors, publishers and booksellers. A thank you for the joy they’ve brought us over the years. I’d estimate we had around 400 people turn up, most of whom were congregated around the Cloughie statue.

Photograph: The Lazy Pineapple

There were varying reactions to our stand-up sit-down. My favourite comment was ‘what are all those dicks doing’. The most frightening was a beefy Forest fan who took exception to the Brian Clough statue getting a make-over courtesy of a knitted woolen jumper. I wanted to say to him that I’ve got 400 people outside Cloughie’s statue to mark the 10th anniversary of his death and