Hummingbird,

A few years ago I promised to bring my parents Harrods cupcakes, however, I have never delivered on this promise. They were down in London this weekend and following a lovely meal in South Kensington we walked past the branch of the Hummingbird Bakery that is up there, and curiosity killed the diet.

Places like The Hummingbird have achieved such a reputation that I get nothing short of dubious walking through the door because how can live up to that expectation. I'd say I'm like that with writers too. 

One of the things I discuss a lot with my writers' group, and anyone else who looks vaguely interested in books, is obviously popular fiction, what's good about it, what sucks, who's overrated and those who are deadly ignored despite being somewhat geniuses. I find that if someone has told me about a book that they love, it can make me a little bit reluctant to read it purely because I'm expecting a lot out of it. 

When I first read An Abundance of Katherine's I wasn't expecting That. As a novelist/novel lover and part time maths geek it was essentially my idea of heaven in book form. I have never, even been so excited to see footnotes in a book - they have graphs in and everything!!! If I had been more aware of the brilliance of John Green before reading the first few of novels I may not have loved them quite so much, because I would have already been expecting greatness. 

In the same way, (and I will point out again I read this because I was told to!) if I hadn't heard that Fifty Shades of Grey (and everything connected to it) were atrocious I would probably have stopped reading half way through the first chapter whilst I was losing the will to live, but knowing it was bad meant that I could read it and expect that an cope with. Like movies where you need to know that it's not serious before starting. I made that mistake with Dr. Strangelove.

Reputations a big thing, but Hummingbird lived up to theirs. I need sleep. 

Catch you later.