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Colonial history makes it difficult for the Irish to support the English at anything, and especially football. But the Irish writer Roddy Doyle almost did this World Cup – and will at the next

On my way to the bookies before the World Cup, I’d more or less decided to put my money on England. They seemed well prepared, they’d breezed through the qualifiers, they had a couple of the world’s best players. So they were a good bet. But it wasn’t just the money. My filling out the docket and handing it over the counter with my cash: this was going to be my post-post-colonial moment. I’d sit through the month and cheer England’s progress because I, like my country, had moved on.

Until quite recently, to be Irish meant to be not-English. But Ireland took a deep breath about 10 years ago and, today, to be Irish means to be not-Greek.

Anyway, by the time I got to the bookies, I’d changed my mind and I put my euros on Argentina. It was a wise, mercenary decision, I thought. The odds, 9-1, were daft. Argentina were being written off because their coach is probably mad. But look at all the other coaches, look at the world’s leaders, look at the world’s greatest authors – they’re all mad. Maradona just accepts his insanity; he loves it. He hugs his players; he loves them. And they love him. Some of them are brilliant, and one of them, Lionel Messi, is an even better footballer than Maradona was.

So, my money’s on Argentina. Which is just as well, because England got hammered at the weekend. And my behaviour during the game made me question the mercenary purity of my decision to put my house on Argentina.

I missed the start of the match. The excuse is feeble. It was my mother’s 85th birthday. Anyway, I had that out of the way, and myself and my brother legged it to my place to watch. On the way, we found out that England were two-nil down; then two-one. I had the television on to see Frank Lampard’s perfectly good equaliser being disallowed. (I’m a Chelsea supporter and he’s a great player.)

A friend texted me at that moment: “Did u see the disallowed goal?” I texted back: “Yeah. A disgrace.” Then I added, “Brilliant,” and sent it. Then myself and my brother spent the next hour cheering on every German attack and sneering at everything English. We had a great time. At one point – I think it was just after Germany’s fourth goal – I said to my brother, “This is because Germany are a better team, isn’t it?”

“Absolutely,” he said. We knew we were lying. And we laughed.

So, my walk to the bookies wasn’t my post-post-colonial moment. It wasn’t even post-colonial. I’m still not-English. I’m the mild colonial boy, in a ditch, fighting for Ireland; I’m starving to death because the spud crop has failed – the grass juice is on my chin. Granted, the grass is drenched in extra-virgin olive oil and not many starving peasants drive Volvo estates, but it’s the state of mind that counts.

I decided this morning: in 2014, I’m going to back England. I won’t change my mind on my way to the bookies; I won’t let myself. Mind you, England probably won’t qualify and I’ll be backing Ireland instead. Or Greece.

A version of this article originally appeared on newyorker.com

Publisher holds its birthday in Bristol, the home of its founder, Allen Lane

Everyone had a favourite Penguin tale: the time a collection of Jacobean plays fell apart because an electric fire melted the glue binding it together; the pride felt when a collection of essays was bought with a school book voucher prize; the comfort of Dad’s old, crumpled edition of the Vegetable Grower’s Handbook.

Fans of Penguin Books – academics, collectors, readers – gathered at a conference in Bristol today to mark the 75th birthday of the publishing house, and to ponder its future.

The event was organised by Bristol University, home to the Penguin archive which holds most, if not all, of the books published by the company and a wealth of material relating to its work – from accounts to letters between writers and editors and hundreds of legal documents relating to the Lady Chatterley’s Lover obscenity trial.

John Lyon, the principal investigator of the archive, said that the idea was to celebrate a great British institution, to remind the people of Bristol of their Penguin heritage (the founder, Allen Lane, was born in the city) and to make sure that it is kept alive for a new generation of readers.

“I think that the younger generation is not so familiar with Penguin. We grew up with the books. They were such a familiar, instantly recognisable sight on bookshelves everywhere. I don’t think younger people feel as strongly about them as we used to,” he said.

Lane is said to have dreamed up the idea of making good quality contemporary fiction available in paperback form at a reasonable price after becoming frustrated by the lack of choice on offer at Exeter train station. The first Penguin paperbacks appeared in the summer of 1935.

Simon Eliot, professor of the history of the book at the University of London, said that the idea had been to produce cheap, portable and disposable books. The books were “flimsy”, but in a good way. It encouraged literate people of modest means to experiment in their reading.

Andrew Sanders, author of the Short Oxford History of English Literature, recalled how the glue holding his edition of a collection of Jacobean plays together melted, causing the cover to fall off. “But I’ve kept the volume, and still use it.”

Inevitably the classic design of the books was discussed in minute detail. Again, everyone had a favourite. Jim Stoddart, the art director of Penguin Press, mentioned the “cog-eyed” bowler-hatted figure on A Clockwork Orange, the iconic creation of David Pelham, who had to come up with the design overnight when the designer he had commissioned let him down.

John Lyon accepted that the electronic age made the future of the book less clear. “But in Penguin we’ve got a great British institution that we ought to cherish and celebrate,” he said.

ends

HMV says it expects better times ahead as Waterstone’s sees sales uplift

HMV Group claims a quiet start to summer trading, with shoppers distracted by the World Cup, will be more than offset by a strong surge in sales in the traditionally busy run-up to Christmas, helped by the demise of rival chain Borders.

The group’s book shop chain Waterstone’s has already seen evidence of an encouraging uplift in sales at stores which used to compete for custom with Borders and is already drawing up plans to heavily stock these outlets ahead of the festive retail rush.

What chief executive Simon Fox has called the “last man standing” benefit gave a significant boost to sales of DVDs and CDs at HMV stores last Christmas following the failure of Woolworths and Zavvi. The company is looking forward to a similar fillip this winter as it tries to kick-start a turnaround at Waterstone’s after a dismal Christmas last year left the division reporting operating profit for the year to April 24 of £2.8m today — down 72% on the previous year.

The absence of competition from Borders is expected to add £5m a year to top-line operating profit.

“Our strategy is on track but it will be I think the Christmas period when we prove that. It is early days for the strategy and there are lots of doubters out there but I do believe our share price is dramatically undervalued,” Fox said.

With teething problems at Waterstone’s new distribution setup said to be resolved, the chain is seeking to shift emphasis away from centrally imposed promotions on blockbuster celebrity biographies, devolving buying strategies to store managers.

Waterstone’s managing director Dominic Myers recently noted that, despite heavy promotion and front-of-store display, only four copies of Ant & Dec’s biography had been sold at its Waterstone’s branch in Hampstead. Meanwhile, some of the best selling titles came from a table of cognitive science books at the back of the store assembled by shop management under the heading “Clever books for clever people”.

Operating profit from the group’s HMV brand in UK and Ireland rose 37% to £73.8m despite a tough end to the year. This business, dominated by high street stores and VAT-loophole internet sales from HMV’s base in Guernsey, is fighting hard against rapid technological challenges as consumers find new ways – mostly online – to purchase digital entertainment products. Earlier this year Fox said he believed overall entertainment sales – music, visual and games – would be flat over the next three years, with hard copy sales continuing to hold about 85% of the market.

“We continue to believe that many of the challenges afflicting HMV, including structural shifts in physical/digital distribution channels, are beyond its direct control and likely to intensify over the medium term,” said analyst Assad Malic of Credit Suisse. “HMV is flagging a disruption to trading in the start of the financial year from the World Cup and we note that inventories at the year end were up 16% … The weak start to current trade is unlikely to help confidence.”

Shares in HMV, which have more than halved in the last year, closed up 6p yesterday at 63p.

This sounds like a first: the BBC will soon announce plans to dramatise a poem. They have also landed some stellar actors in the shape of Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman. The narrative poem being dramatised for television is Christopher Reid’s The Song of Lunch, which tells the story of a book editor (failed writer, getting old, hates his job) meeting an old flame (successful writer, radiant, known internationally) for a nostalgic lunch in Soho. Of course it quickly goes from bittersweet to boozy and bitter. Commissioned to mark National Poetry Day on 7 October, BBC2 controller Janice Hadlow says she hopes it will inspire people to get writing themselves.

On paper, it sounds terrific; Niall MacCormick (Wallander and Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley) will direct, while Pier Wilkie (Criminal Justice) will produce. Reid, of course, won this year’s Costa Book award for his incredibly moving collection A Scattering, poems written in memory of his late wife.

Barnes & Noble is suffering in the switch away from books

A shift in literary tastes from books to digital reading devices has hurt America’s biggest high street bookseller, Barnes & Noble, which saw its shares slump 16% on Wall Street on a warning of weak profits.

Barnes & Noble, a stalwart of the books industry which has 720 high street shops in the US, revealed a $32m (£21m) loss for the three months to May following a 3% drop in like-for-like sales at its bricks and mortar stores. The company conceded that investment in e-books would hit earnings in the year ahead.

“We are planning to redirect a significant portion of our financial resources towards investments in technology, sales and marketing,” said chief executive William Lynch. “These investments will impact our bottom line in 2011, but we believe they will enable Barnes & Noble to capitalise on the significant mid-to-long term growth opportunities presented by the digital markets.”

In common with others in the industry, Barnes & Noble is hoping that downloads of digital books, plus mail-order sales from its website, will make up for a decline on the high street.

The company believes it can win a quarter of the digital books market and has set a target of group-wide sales of $8.9bn in 2014, compared to last year’s $5.8bn.

However, some feel this is optimistic. Michael Souers, an equity analyst at Standard & Poor’s, said: “There’s a risk inherent in switching strategies and there is significant investor concern about how long it will take to monetise the e-books strategy.”

The slump in Barnes & Noble’s share price put the stock at its lowest point since late 2008. Others in the industry are also suffering. Rival chain Borders recently refinanced its debt to stave off the prospect of bankruptcy. On the internet, Wal-Mart and Amazon have engaged in price battles offering deep discounts on bestselling books.

Portrait photographer who took the image of the Queen used on postage stamps

John Hedgecoe, who has died of cancer aged 78, photographed a variety of subjects but was best known for his portraits of artists and writers. His style ranged from the formal, such as posed shots of artists with their work in the studio, to close-ups revealing their various reactions to being photographed. Hedgecoe took portraits of Henry Moore, Francis Bacon, David Hockney, John Betjeman, Ted Hughes and Agatha Christie, but his most famous sitter was the Queen. Hedgecoe’s image of her has effectively sold more than 200bn copies, as it is used on postage stamps. It is credited with being the most frequently reproduced image in the world.

In 1966, he was approached by the postmaster general to take a portrait of the Queen. A session took place in the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace and, despite the quantity of film expended, lasted only 20 minutes. When the Queen inquired whether he had finished – “So soon, Mr Hedgecoe?” – he seized the opportunity for a second impromptu shoot in the music room. The Queen selected her preferred image and the sculptor Arnold Machin then made a plaster bust, which Hedgecoe photographed for the stamps.

Hedgecoe was born in Brentford, west London. His father, William, a banker who worked in the far east, gave him his first camera for his 14th birthday. During the second world war, John was evacuated to Gulval, a village near Penzance in Cornwall, and attended the local school. He later wrote a memoir of the time, thinly disguised as a novel about an evacuee growing up in the West Country, called Breakfast With Dolly (1996; Dolly was the name of the aunt with whom he lived).

During his national service, he participated in an aerial survey of wartime bomb damage. In 1957, he enrolled at the Guildford School of Art to study under the pioneering photographers Ifor and Joy Thomas, who frowned upon the use of 35mm cameras. The students were encouraged instead to pose their subjects before giant half-plate Gandolfi cameras, to get things right in the studio before venturing further afield.

Hedgecoe spent much of his free time on his own photoshoots, experimenting with colour, and selling his work wherever he could place it, from Amateur Photographer to Queen magazine, where he was staff photographer from 1957 until 1972. He considered Queen magazine “a great shop window for me” and picked up freelance work on other publications, including the Sunday Times, Observer and Telegraph magazines.

As his freelance work and advertising commissions increased during the 1960s, he employed an assistant, Angela Chadwyck-Healey. She recalls him as focused but great fun; on one occasion, she had to find a model with “perfectly beautiful hands” for a cigarette advertisement, which also required 10 pairs of gold cufflinks from Asprey’s.

Angela and her husband, the photographer Charles Chadwyck-Healey, an early business partner of Hedgecoe’s, had a family and would be called upon whenever Hedgecoe wanted to “borrow a baby” – a child or grandchild – for his handbooks on photographing infants, toddlers and young children.

Hedgecoe met Julia Mardon during their first year at Guildford, and they married in 1960. Julia was a friend of Henry Moore’s daughter, Mary, and Hedgecoe’s introduction to the Moore family brought about a lengthy documentation of the sculptor at work, from carefully posed interior portraits to informal long shots of Moore engaging with large chunks of Carrara marble.

The portraits were widely exhibited and led to three books about Moore. Less reverential in style were Hedgecoe’s 1960s images of the fashion designer Mary Quant and the painter Sandra Blow; Peter Blake looking pensive before his easel; or a shot of Hockney turning down the corners of his mouth for the camera. Hedgecoe also photographed establishment figures, including Winston Churchill.

In 1965, Hedgecoe’s ideas and dynamism persuaded the Royal College of Art in London to allow him to found a department of photography, and in 1975 he became Britain’s first professor of photography. The Book of Photography, which he wrote and illustrated, was published the following year.

Hedgecoe was the author of more than 30 books on photography, which accrued sales of more than 9m, including The Art of Colour Photography (1978), Aesthetics of Nude Photography (1984), Practical Portrait Photography (1987), How to Take Great Vacation Photography (2003) and The Art of Digital Photography (2006).

He taught until 1994, when he was made an emeritus professor at the RCA. He always regarded writing as his other career and, at the time of his death, had completed the first three chapters of a second novel about his national service. In 2006, Hedgecoe signed a deal with a picture agency for the first time; Topfoto plans to place all his work online.

He and Julia divorced in 1995. In 2001, he married Jenny Hogg, whom he had first met working at Queen magazine. She survives him, along with his children, Sebastian, Dolly and Auberon, from his first marriage.

• John Hedgecoe, photographer, born 24 March 1932; died 3 June 2010

Notoriously straight-faced South African author had his audience roaring at a recent appearance – and apparently smiled

Stop the presses, hold the front page: reports are trickling out that the notoriously po-faced Nobel laureate JM Coetzee cracked a rare smile last week.

Coetzee is known as one of the world’s great literary recluses: he failed to turn up to collect either of his Booker prizes and rarely gives interviews. Earlier this year, Martin Amis opined that Coetzee’s whole style was “predicated on transmitting absolutely no pleasure”, while Coetzee himself described the John Coetzee character in his fictionalised memoir Summertime as “prickly, opinionated, incompetent, ridiculous … socially inept. Repressed.”

So his audience at the Writers’ Centre Worlds Literature festival inNorwich last week probably wasn’t expecting a laugh a minute from the South African writer. But, as Coetzee read a previously unpublished short story, he “had the audience roaring”, according to Abu Dhabi English-language newspaper The National, “as he railed against the ridiculousness of the once-fertile Karoo area of South Africa, now only good for eco-tourism, and of a whole country’s ‘light grade of sorryness’”.

Coetzee was only on stage for 20 minutes but “some were sure a smile had cracked his lips”, said The National, and “his neat repetition of words and phrases were as adept as a stand-up comic’s”. The Writers’ Centre’s own report of the event agreed, saying that the author “took his place at the podium with a small smile” and went on to “rock the house”.

“It was, admittedly, a brief smile,” said The National, going on to admit that “a move into comic fiction is unlikely. But it was indicative of a gradual shift in Coetzee’s frosty outlook towards a more amused – or perhaps bemused – attitude to life.”

The Nobel laureate’s jolly outlook in Norwich was markedly different to his appearance at the Adelaide Writers’ Week earlier this year, introducing the British author Geoff Dyer. Drawing some laughs from the audience for his introduction to Dyer – “he’s written … a book about a book about DH Lawrence and a book called Yoga for People Who Can’t Be Bothered To Do It, which won a prize for travel books and must therefore I guess be a travel book” – Coetzee nonetheless failed to crack a smile at Dyer’s own quip.

“What an honour. If someone had told me 20 years ago that I’d be here in Australia and I’d be introduced by a Booker prize-winning South African Nobel prize-winning novelist, I don’t know what I’d have said. I mean, I’d probably have said it’s incredible, because Nadine Gordimer is my favourite writer,” said Dyer, laughing and glancing towards Coetzee, who remained resolutely straight-faced.

Author Harper Lee is famously shy of talking to the press. So imagine the excitement when one newspaper flagged its “interview” . . .

It’s nearly 50 years since the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee’s Pulitzer prize-winning novel. Famously, Lee has spent most of the time since living a quiet life, which journalists commonly describe as reclusive, chiefly because although Lee is known in her Alabaman home town, she won’t speak to the press, and has never published another novel.

So imagine the excitement when the Mail on Sunday devoted two pages to the story of a meeting between its writer Sharon Churcher and the legendarily silent novelist. “When [Harper Lee's] friends agreed to give our reporter an introduction, it was on one strict condition . . . Don’t mention the Mockingbird” ran the preamble. This is how the meeting went (read it slowly, to make it last):

“Nervously, I approach the novelist, carrying the best box of chocolates I could find in the small Alabama town of Monroeville, a Hershey’s selection costing a few dollars. I start to apologise that I hadn’t brought more but a beaming Nelle – as her friends and family call her – extends her hand.

“‘Thank you so much,’ she told me. ‘You are most kind. We’re just going to feed the ducks but call me the next time you are here. We have a lot of history here. You will enjoy it.’”

Chatto & Windus, £12.99

1974: It’s amazing the things I knew about David. His star sign, his favourite

colour. Back then, David was the only man for Sharon and me and on the way home from school in South Wales we would discuss who would get to snog him first when he invited us on a date. It was only a matter of time before he asked us out because each week we bought The Essential David Cassidy magazine. I just hoped he wouldn’t be put off that my German mum had made me learn the cello.

Bill was so ashamed of his job, he couldn’t tell his girlfriend what he did. She thought he was interviewing Led Zeppelin for the NME: luckily she was too stupid to ask why he was never in it. Bill was the magazine voice of David Cassidy. “Just make it up,” he had been told and ever since Bill had created the fantasies to moisten the hearts of 13-year-old girls. Now David was coming to London and Bill had to compile the most difficult David quiz ever.

“Oh look,” I said to Sharon. “We can win a trip to meet David in America.We’re bound to win.” It was a bit tricky because posh Gillian had also asked me to enter the competition with her and I didn’t like to say no as she was quite popular and I was having my first period and Steve quite fancied me.

“I don’t mean to interrupt, Petra,” said Sharon. “But I can’t help noticing we’re well past page 100 and nothing has happened except for endless riffs about having crushes and periods. “I can’t help it,” I replied. “Allison is years late with this book and she’s going to be sued if she doesn’t deliver so she’s got to churn out something. And going on and on about being a teenage girl and name-checking the 1970s doesn’t take much time or thought. “That explains it then,” said Sharon. “In which case let’s go to the concert without telling our parents.”

David was amazing, though it was a bit sad that some girl died in the crush and what with all the media attention, my mum was well cross when we got back and locked me up in my room for a week so I quite forgot about the quiz.

1998: Petra mysteriously turns into the third person present tense. She is at the funeral of her grumpy mother and wonders why her husband Marcus has left her for a younger woman. She feels vaguely dissatisfied with her life but, despite apparently being a talented music therapist, has absolutely no self-insight and can’t put her finger on why. She goes back to her mother’s home and finds a red envelope that had been kept hidden. She won the David competition after all!

She howls with rage and rings the long-disconnected number of the magazine that was also discontinued in 1974. Amazingly someone answers and takes her seriously rather than suggest she gets psychiatric attention. “What shall we do about her, Boss?” says the editor.

“We’ll give her and her friend a make-over and take them to see David in Vegas,” says Bill who has equally bizarrely managed to become editor-in-chief of a magazine publishing company. “And I shall write up the non-story.”

“Isn’t this great?” says Sharon, who has predictably become a salt-of-the earth, mother of two still living in Cardiff.

“He is still my first love and I’ve never really got over him,” Petra says.

“I think I love you,” says Bill.

“And I hate you for trampling on my childhood dreams. You betrayed me by pretending to be David.”

“But think how bad it was for me. Having to write crap copy to pay the bills.”

“I know how you feel,” Allison nods.

Petra sees David. The meeting goes well. She achieves chick-lit catharsis and is ready to move on. Perhaps it’s Bill not David who is the One.

PS: Here’s a transcript of an interview Allison did with David. AP: I used to have a crush on you. DC: Really?

Digested read, digested: I Don’t Know Why She Does It.

US reviews suggest third instalment in series of films based on Stephenie Meyer’s vampire novels is best so far

Good news for Twilight fans and their guardians: early reports from America suggest the third instalment in the bloodsucking saga is the best so far by some way.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, which opens in the US this Friday and in the UK on 9 July (its premiere is tomorrow night), has received strikingly positive reviews in trade papers Variety and the Hollywood Reporter.

Both publications gave a big thumbs up to incoming director David Slade, who is said to have refocused the story away from superfluous special effects and back on to the three leads. Stephenie Meyer’s novel – on which the film is based – involves the final bit of flip-flopping by high-schooler Bella (Kristen Stewart) between undead paramour Edward (Robert Pattinson) and werewolf suitor Jacob (Taylor Lautner).

The result, says Variety’s Peter Debruge, “finally feels more like the blockbuster this top-earning franchise deserves … Despite the somewhat simple-minded source, the producers plot everything as if it were a strategic game of chess.” The result? “Eclipse feels the most cinematic of the series so far.” It’s a view echoed by the Hollywood Reporter’s Kirt Honeycutt, who thinks “Eclipse [is] a film that neatly balances the teenage operatic passions from Stephenie Meyer’s novels with the movies’ supernatural trappings”.

Honeycutt especially likes its sense of humour, highlighting dialogue that has Edward say to Bella, of the oft-topless Jacob, “Doesn’t he own a shirt?” Of the three leads, it’s Lautner who’s picked out for particular praise: “[He] nearly steals the movie with his ripped muscle and steely acting. He definitely has the ‘it’ factor Hollywood always looks for.”