"Now that world has passed. It's a question of people knowing more about things. Everything has been discovered in a way, or at least priced. So one is not really interesting, or the greater world is not interested in you and what you are discovering. I am sorry. But I am sure that somewhere there is something that will once again set my heart on fire again. I don't doubt it." - Martin Stone (musician and book dealer)
A Channel 4 documentary on the now lost world of second hand book dealers and runners, the criminal underworld and counter culture in London. Interestingly it features a young Alan Moore, the occult graphic novelist (Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Promethea etc.) as he searches of a mysterious book that "connects everything.... the key to the city". Even the legendary Brian Caitlin makes an appearance (adding gravitas to the whole thing).
Former aristo turned crime writer Robin Cook (aka Derek Raymond) sets the tone ('All life is ultimately about death. It's what I call the general contract') while Michael Moorcock ('Moorcock schmoorcock,' mutters a Charing Cross Road dealer) casts doubt on Driffield's claim that a pulp novel, The Cardinal and the Corpse by Stephen Blakesley, is actually the work of Flann O'Brien. Petit and Sinclair's film is a deliberately jarring, oddly engaging rogues' gallery that even makes room for Tony Lambrianou, a former associate of the Krays ('I don't like the word gangster: I feel embarrassed when people use that word')."
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