Shelved

We were three times losers in the PEN quiz, but came a very commendable 18th, so Pedantic Heads were held high and company pride maintained.

I went to a quiz somewhat lower down the scale.  To the BBC to see a taping of Never Mind the Buzzcocks, to watch my friend Phill hum intros, none of which I could guess.  I'm so unplugged I didn't even know who the other guests were except for one poor simple guy from a boy band, taunted so mercilessly by Simon Amstell, that I wanted to get up out if the audience and smack him.   It was so cringingly painful, like the slow boy at school being picked on by the class clever dick.  Even the person sitting next to me had his head in his hands, unable to watch.

And why do people think that standing in a line up being ridiculed is a great way to rejuvenate a fading career?  The real show takes about three hours to film and the one hit wonders of yesteryear are standing out there under the lights for as long as twenty minutes  trying to look impassive while the panelists make derisory remarks about them, just to take a three second bow.  If that's funny then I've lost my sense of humour.  It's like Bedlam with video clips.

I didn't really want to go to the Green Room afterwards, though the likes of Matthew Wright, apparently the host of a daytime chat show watched by the unemployed, and comedienne Katy Brand, are, as I'm sure you agree, hard to resist.

And yet, somehow I managed.

Phill looked tired. I was exhausted.  We passed Paxo in the hall on the way out who also looked knackered.  The two greeted each other with the same cordial familiarity I show the man from Viking Office Supplies - believe me, the two of us are great pals.  But Jeremy didn't seem to recognise me which is surprising since we are both with the same literary agent.  I can only imagine he's kicking himself now, thinking, damn it, was that Marion?

The next day I had a library event in North London at which one of the two other Waddling Duck authors also attending turned out to be the sweet and modest World War II pilot who was nominated for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize.   I sent him an email:

'I see we're meeting again tomorrow - I promise you I am a lot nicer when not nervous and not drunk.'

'This is good news.' he replied.

I wasn't so sure, especially as the event promised both alcohol and nerves in equal measure, but when I arrived, he was the only person I knew and I clung to his superior literary reputation like an inconsequential limpet, trying desperately to be nice, as women came up and asked him to autograph his hardback.  This was a lot cleaner than it sounds.  We're talking librarians remember. 

I met a lovely woman called Jodi from my local library who wondered if I would be interested in doing an event.  Of course I would be, though my real local library is full of unemployed males, many of whom smell of Special Brew and I can't see them being overly interested in a black Notting Hill widow, except for spare change. In fact the library in question does feature in my novel.  Oh yes, location, location, location.  However, Jodi toils at the turnstile of a library at the posher end of the borough so I live in hope that some sleek book club will consent to read my book.  And the fact that I could have driven to Chelsea with my resident's parking permit and met her there rather than trekking to North Bloody London, from my sickbed, high on Lemsip and low on sparkling conversation, is neither here nor there.  Well in fact, it's there, at the far end of the Piccadilly line where nobody else but she wanted to meet me.

It was the cocktail party from hell's idea of hell.

'Are you librarians?' I asked a pair of pregnant ladies standing ominously close to a some swinging doors which hit me everytime someone left (there was practically a stampede for the exit), surely winning the prize for most original line at a library convention.

One laughed.  'They don't call us that any more, I'm a branch manager.'  she said, exchanging a superior look with her friend.  Yep, like that makes you any more interesting, dearie.  But then they too swung out the doors and left me.

'I used to be a librarian,' I told another, trying in vain to strike up some camaraderie.  The fact that I was 22 in a predominatly male higher educational establishment at the time and treated the place like Club 18-30 with books, wasn't mentioned.  Oh well then, it was, I sort of blurted it out - nerves and drink and cold relief remedies...  Amy Winehouse's adverse reaction to medication springs to mind.  You really shouldn't mix antihistamine with booze.

The woman looked at me over her glasses.  She was not amused.

I don't think any of them will be recommending my book to their readers.

I eventually introduced myself  to another gushy author who just looked like a librarian, who was twittering on about what she was cooking for her children's supper (Pan MacMillan).  'I should run off home if you've had enough,' her publicist told me.  'Go on, nobody will miss you.'

God these people will go to any lengths to get rid of the competition...

much like my ex-husband who, when I arrived home, sick, coughing, feverish, tired and emotional,
was just on his way out, the last of his clothes packed into bags and boxes, piled up in the hallway.

I went upstairs, closed the doors of his empty wardrobe and got into bed.

Turns out there's some pain that Nurofen doesn't banish.

The secret life of mothers - the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize

I'm working in an office of dancing princesses, who skip off after work to this other world that starts when I stop.

Half the office is at the Cafe Royal where 30 tables of London's (g)literary elite show off their expensive educations and superior knowledge of all things bookish, while the other half get to show off their nominated, but absentee, author at the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize at the Century Club.

But instead of trudging home to undone taxes, the new washing machine (bought after the kids pulled the door off the last one) which is sitting in the middle of the kitchen blocking the sink, a broken dishwasher and assorted unsnapped mousetraps, I get to slip on my leopard skin shoes (by the bus stop on Shaftesbury Avenue) and join them.

I call Pierre who owns the Club to see if he's in the house.  He used to own Odeon in Regent's Street when I was a restaurant critic, but alas he's at his other club, Paramount, at the top of Centrepoint.  'But pass by and have a drink, if you like, and bring a friend.  I'll leave your name at the door.'

Yep, first find a friend.  If my life was a board game I would still be on Go waiting to throw a six.  Thank goodness I can take somebody else's turn.

I tag along with Glam Editor who meets someone she knows by the coat check. 'This is mumble, she says as I insert myself between them on the stairs.  'And this is my friend, Marion,' she adds kindly, because it's nicer than saying 'our office manager' which might prompt people to ask what the hell I am doing there.

Normal conversation:
    'Where did you say you worked again?'
    'Pedantic Press.'
    'Oh really (impressed) and are you on the editorial side?'
    'Erm, no, I answer the phone, buy lightbulbs, and write the... (they've already wandered off)...blog.'

We are given badges.  With our names on.  I have my own.  It is thrilling.  There is no mention of status, or its absence, as a large glass of wine is placed in my hand and speeches begin.   Unfortunately - strike two after this morning's William Hill disappointment - our author doesn't win.  Instead that honour goes to a man who announces in his acceptance speech (aren't men odd?) that a certain part of his anatomy allegedly looks like a Cornetto, which he then hastily denies.  Too late, the image is branded on every woman's mind in conical, but not particularly comical, detail. A roomful of eyes flicker magnetically north, followed by a lot of hurried examination of the bottom of wine glasses with that liquid swirling, mmm, is this Soave? concentration before we all look at each other with wide eyes.

I can't stop wondering which way round the Cornetto is attached.

Mr mumble, is still pinned to the wall between me and Glamorous Editor,  being incredibly charming.  He has pinned his badge to the bottom of his jumper which dangles at  Cornetto height and I can't bring myself to stoop and check either out.  He is talking very modestly about the history book he is working on.

'Do you only write non fiction?' I ask hoping for clues to his identity.

'No, I've written four novels and...' he says.  I fall off the cliff as he elaborates.  Literary parties are not the place to go if you have an easily crushable ego. Mine is a coke can under his heel.  Glamorous Editor chooses this moment to announce that I too have written a novel, but by then it's a bit like wearing a training bra in a room full of Page 3 girls.  'You know that it's not going to change your life,' he says with empathy as I fold my arms protectively over my chest.

'I work in publishing.' I say (look I do, I bloody do), 'so, yes I know there's not going to be any big fanfare.'

'I remember when my first novel came out, I kept expecting everything to be different and it was just another day.'  It occurs to me that I must have heard of him if he's this prolific but it's a bit late to ask him to better annunciate his name. Is it ruder to just let the four novels float over my head as if they were trays of indifferent canapes as though I'm used to chatting with well-known authors everyday?   Come on, when did I ever let a canape go past me?

'What did you say your name was?' I asked.

He repeated it. Quite clearly this time.

'Oh God,' I spluttered into my wine. 'I was talking to you completely naturally, and now I'll have to stop,' He looked puzzled. 'I know all your books. I've read them. I've bought them at airports. And now I'm going to be all overawed and babbling.'  (And that would be different - how, exactly?) I wandered away, star-struck to cower inadequately with two of the other dancing princesses.

'A Cornetto?' said one to the other, mystified.

My own editor at Waddling Duck was in the corner with one of the other nominated authors who apparently has been up for all sorts of prizes but not won any.  Yet.  It's a great novel, set not a million miles away from Ginger Pig farming country.  I feel I've been there.  Hell, I have been there.

'Bad luck,' I tell him, and he looks embarrassed and a bit fed up.   He shrugs: 'It's so awkward being consoled for something you didn't have any expectations of winning in the first place.' I rack my brain (which has become singular since the second glass of wine) for something that doesn't sound consoling and can only come up with a story about an Eartha Kitt album being the one thing I have ever won in my life.  When I was nominated for Restaurant Critic of the Year, people didn't even clap because nobody had a clue who I was. 

'And your point is?' he seems to say.

My attention is caught by a very pretty girl who suddenly falls over flat on the floor.  Even dancing princesses get drunk, apparently.  A man rushes over and 'oxters' her to her feet (it happens so frequently in Scotland we even have a verb for it, you see...)  An oxter, for those of you interested in the Secret Life of Words is from the Old English oxta or ohstais and means an armpit.  The rest should be self-explanatory.

It seemed like an auspicious moment to put my own leopard skin slippers into my bag and dance myself off up to Oxford Street for the long bus ride home.  Paramount's panoramic views can wait for another night.  I've got art homework to do, a pressing one thousand words to be milked from my marriage break up for the Sunday Times, five thousand words on cows to edit for the cookery book, a washing machine to plumb in, and mice to trap.

I also have a box of Cornettos to throw out of the freezer.  Somehow, I've lost my taste for them.
.

Observed...

The lovely Graham Rawle's studio has been photographed for an article in the Observer Magazine this week. There it is in all its headless doll glory but how could they have lit the model of the Emerald City from above? It looks so beautiful glowing like kryptonite in the far corner of the room while this photograph made it look the way I do in a restaurant.

I was particularly taken by the Getting Your Own Graham Rawle Style Tips at the end of the article. Forget being an artist, lovingly collecting items from car boot sales - if you ever wanted a reclaimed, vintage, shop display unit, now you know where you can pick one up for a mere six hundred smackeroonies. Buy your quirky credentials at the Conran Shop with retro toys! And where do you go if you want a stack of old Beanos and a couple of broken dolls with the soundboxes exposed on their chests forlornly bleating 'Mama'? My attic, perhaps? It's stuffed full of all the casualties of my own offspring's childhood - toy zoos, wooden trains, lego and a thousand tiny cars, none of which they will allow me to throw out. But if a Graham Rawle groupie wants to make me an offer, I could be persuaded...

Though Graham and I are of the same generation, my childhood was obviously a lot more austere than his. Far from being populated by push along dogs, comics and painted wagons with ABC blocks, I had the Scottish version: Everyman classics, my sister's cast off pram (full size) a crib made by the blind (which should tell you something about how attractive it was) a doll's house without any furniture (all my miniature people slept in cast off Embassy Regal packets) and a Sindy with a duffel coat.

Other girls got tarty Barbie with the high heels and the frilly knickers, but no - I got the duffel coat.

But I'm not bitter.

My Sindy never wore pants at all.

Switched on

When Mr T said he was off to William Hill at lunch time and would need to cancel my annual review meeting, I did think it was a bit shabby of him to be sloping off to the bookies while I was wringing my hands in anxiety about keeping my job for another year.  And then I remembered from the congratulatory emails whizzing around the office that he was going to The William Hill prize for best Sports Book of the Year for which John Carlin, author of Playing the Enemy had been most deservedly nominated.   Grudgingly, I moved myself into a later slot in his diary, and shall live to fret another day.  It is, however, hard to see how the office could manage without me so perhaps I shall survive the cull.  Who else would arrange for the annual office clean up?  Who keeps us going in anti-bacterial hand soap?  What other women is brave enough to enter the dark cavern of the Ubereditor's office and approach his desk without protective clothing?

Why, just this morning the MD of our esteemed company looked up as I approached and his eyes widened in pleasure.  'Amazing,' he crowed.  And it's true, I was having a really good hair day, but still, I don't usually get quite such a joyous reception.  Our resident Fashionista was equally surprised until he qualified his delight:  'The light bulbs have arrived!' he said, gesturing towards my hands in which I held - yes, you've guessed it, a long Osram Dulux L light fitment.

God, you know you're getting old when men are only electrified by the fact that you've bought a box of ruddy light bulbs.

'He'll be hoping you're going to get on a ladder and screw it in for him,' said Fashionista. This is what it comes down to.  Sigh.  I met my husband by climbing up and down a stepladder in a library until he asked me to dinner.  But then look how that worked out...

Sadly, we didn't win the William Hill Prize, that honour went to former England batsman Marcus Trescothick  for his autobiography Coming Back to Me in which he talks about his struggle with depression.  Poor thing.  I thought cricket was only depressing when you had to watch it.

We have a second and third bite at the cherry this evening.  We are sharing a table with Cannongate at the Colman Getty PEN Quiz at the Cafe Royal which promises the winners a fistful of William Hill Betting Vouchers (there's just no getting away from these people - who knew bookies were so literary?)  Mr T sent round an email asking if any of us wanted to take a place at the table and a few of our number felt they were confident enough in their general knowledge - or very, very foolish - and volunteered.  I was not one of them.  I used to be a regular at a quiz held in the bowels of the Atlantic Bar (and there's another coincidence) made up of teams of hacks from various newspapers and hosted by Jeremy Beadle, but that was a no brainer.  For a start the team headed up by Jane Goldman, which usually included both David Baddiel and Frank Skinner, always won (though I have no idea what newspaper they were pretending to be from) and then, because we are talking about journalists here, second only to publishers in their fondness for alcohol, everyone was fairly drunk by the second round and didn't really give a damn about accuracy - much like the publications they worked for.  I did, however, develop an excellent I'm-thinking-really-hard-and- it's-on-the-tip-of-my-tongue intent expression which exploded into Eureka - got  it! relief when another person chipped in with the right answer.  It worked beautifully with a lot of plastered hacks but I don't see it getting past the gimlet-eyed Mr T and his band of merry smartalecs.

At the same time as the quiz, our third chance to win something comes at the reception for The John Llewellyn Rhys Prize which is being held at Century on Shaftsbury Avenue where Aravind is one of the six finalists. With Mr T and the other Chiefs sweating it out in the contest for Brainy Publisher of the Year,  this clears the way for the Indians to drink a glass of cava, and Lo, a miracle has occurred:  there is a spare invitation.

'Would you like to come?  Marion,' asks the holder of the golden ticket.  'Not being rude or anything, but you wouldn't get a chance to go if everyone else wasn't at the PEN Quiz.'

I know, I know, but damn it, I have to cook dinner.  And by the time I get home and go back again I will have lost two hours of work, and I have a pile of things waiting to be attended to and an article to write for the Sunday Times Style Section by Wednesday...  I just can't see how I could possibly...

'Absolutely, what time, where?' I said, though while everyone else is turning up in feathers, heels and lipstick (except the Ubereditor who doesn't usually bother with the lipstick), I'm going to have to settle for jeans and boots because I don't have time to go home and change.

It'll be Cinderella before the fairy godmother make-over - but hey - I can always just stick a lightbulb in each hand.

Smile, you're not on Candid Camera

I remember a friend who was married to a food writer complaining that since magazines shoot their December issue months ahead, they had already had four Christmases in their house, and it was still only August. I’m suffering for a small case of premature publication myself as because my book is out in February, I’m doing some articles for magazines that are going to press now but which won’t hit the newsstand until next year.

Compared to some of our authors here at Pedantic, however, I’m certainly not gobbling up the column inches like crisps at an office party. So, I was really excited when a magazine I’ve worked for occasionally in the past, got in touch and said they wanted me to write something to tie in with a plug for my book, but there was a catch.

‘You have to be a certain age, and I’m sure you’re not,’ said the editor.

She was being kind. I am. ‘So what do you want me to write about?’ I asked, thinking, so what if I'm old - dosh and a by-line is a win-win situation.

Her reply pinged back: ‘We’re asking some couples to review various sex manuals and write a short piece on how it worked out, and we want you to do the one that recommends not having sex as a means of boosting libido.’

Oh.

Why do you have to be over 49 to do that?

‘And we’ll need a picture of you and your husband.’

Well, this raises (or not as the case may be) a few problems. Though I am, unfortunately, old enough to pass the old crone test, a little hitch would be that I don’t, strictly speaking, have a husband any more since he left home six months ago.

And, though this might go some way to explaining how this sorry state of affairs came to pass, correct me if I’m wrong, but how is not having sex as a means of improving your sex life any different from the normal not having sex because you can’t be bothered?

So I had to decline. But not before laughing heartily at the idea of my very sober academic ex-husband agreeing to have his picture taken for an article about sex manuals. It was almost worth begging him to come back, just to see the expression on his face when I suggested it. Forget saving your marriage, it seemed like an almost perfect way to guarantee a divorce.

‘Well then, what about dating?’ suggested the editor, seamlessly, ‘ February is also the Valentine issue and we’re doing something on blind dates, would you write about that?’

Hackery, thy name is Marion, I agreed immediately and article written, I was summoned for a few days later for a photo shoot.

‘What dress size do you wear?’ asked the editor. I whispered the answer down the phone hoping that my colleagues at Pedantic Press thought it was the age of my teenage daughter who had miraculously become several years younger. I then realised that when I couldn’t fit into any of the clothes I was going to feel really stupid. And Fletzish. But would it matter? It would probably only be a snap. The Times photographer took two shots of my face in my garden and it was over. The Guardian had a sub-editor with a camera in a cupboard. And the last time I had a big byline picture taken I was standing next to a man in a pink suit wearing eyeliner and mascara and lipstick, all of which he had applied himself before leaving the house. Believe me, I could have grown antlers and nobody would have noticed me.

So off I went to a studio in North London to be met  by the Picture Editor, a photographer, her assistant, a hair and make-up person, a stylist, a rack of clothes, a row of shoes, lunch, polenta cake and a small child in a turban waving a palm frond – oh well, okay then – a wind machine.

Three hours later I was transformed from office drudge to drag queen at an S&M club, with a row of large bulldog clips clipped to my person (apparently they are used to people minimizing their size and always provide larger clothes) and smiling like I was on day release from the asylum.

Ah the glamorous world of print journalism.

Thank goodness for Photoshop.

I'm (not) your man

It's hardly surprising that there's a dearth of available single men in their fifties, or that those who do exist look lower down the age scale for a potential suitor, because we women of a similar age are daunting creatures. And god, we're fussy.

While one can live quite happily for years with a monosyllabic husband whose silences, you have convinced yourself, are thoughtful - how on earth do you switch to Mr Garrulous whose last less-than careful owner let him chatter over University Challenge - and then get all the answers wrong - where as your last car, I mean man, made Paxo look like he was a slow boy from the woodwork class? Recent criticisms I have heard from my friends about men they have met include: 'He sends me emails with weblinks in them.' 'He didn't drink.' 'He orders very expensive wine and then I have to split the bill.' 'He puts extra salt on everything he eats.'  'He calls the bathroom "the little boy's room"'.  'He wears an anorak.'  'He signs off his emails: "Cheers''', and 'he lives in Greenwich.' (Okay that last one was me.)

None of these seem like grounds for shunning, but nevertheless, shunned those men have been (well, look, It's an hour and a half's drive from my house to Greenwich without traffic - not gonna happen).  All men have their idiosyncrasies and all women nitpick.  I could make them into categories for match.com and they'd be a lot more bloody useful than whether they like Korean food, or "enjoy country walks"'.

So, perhaps it's understandable that those who are pairable cling to the first woman who doesn't contradict them when they voice an opinion. However, that shouldn't lull them into a pretty, young, sweetly accommodating sense of security, because no matter how old or how, apparently amenable, the woman is. She also talks.

To her friends.

Example: Last night in a staid, middle-aged bistro off Kensington Gore waiting for a night of nostalgic, melancholic bliss with Leonard Cohen which I unfortunately have to share with the rest of the Albert Hall. Sitting beside me is my recently single friend, Eva. She is fiddling with her cutlery looking awkward, as well she might.

Do you remember the Woody Allen Film, Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask? Well, this just about sums up Eva, except that she's not afraid.

I, on the other hand - at which she is looking very intently - am terrified. Based on her last question she seems to be expecting some sort of demonstration. I clench my fist and she sits up attentively, and I hurriedly sit on it instead. For too many seconds it appears she thinks that this is part of the show-and-tell and I can see the cogs turning in her confused brain until I shake my head.

I reach for the wine bottle to replenish my glass.

She sits up and gets out a mental notepad.

'No No, NO.' I say, taking a large gulp of wine as panic runs through my head like a naked guest in a burning hotel.

She's still looking at me expectantly.

'I'm not an expert,' I protest.

'But you did write that column,' she insists.

'Yes but I looked it all up on the internet.'

A little light bulb seems to go off behind her eyes. 'Ah, I didn't think about that,' she said. ' What should I type into Google?' She moves a little closer to me, to catch the answer mumbled into my risotto which is a little too tart for my taste (speaking of which...)

'Do you think anyone is listening?' she whispers, rather late in the day, as she glances at the table next to us where there's an old, red faced man with white facial hair but not a lot on his head and his slim, soft blonde daughter.

No, I don't think they can hear us.'

'How can you be sure?' Now, after half an hour of Ask Me I'm Anne Summers - suddenly - she's shy.

'Because if they were listening they'd be a lot quieter.'

I'm wondering what has prompted this sudden thirst for carnal knowledge but I daren't ask. I already know far, far too much about the man she is currently seeing. Things that make you go blind just thinking about them which I shall, continually, the next time I sit across the dinner table from him. Thank goodness it's time to wander up to the Albert Hall.

Half an hour later, Leonard Cohen is kneeling at my feet, albeit a mile away. His voice sounds like an underground explosion, his hand is cupped around the microphone, his cheeks are folded across his face like they've been in a drawer for a while, his eyes are closed. 'I'm your man', he sings.

There's a collective swoon across the auditorium, then the lights come up at the interval. In the row in front of us the old guy from the restaurant is running his hands over his daughter's back in a way that is not paternal.  Sugar and daddy spring to mind.  Next to me sits a chap with a flax of dyed black hair, wearing a leather jacket several sizes too big for Pavarotti. who smells strongly of stale cigarette smoke and has a cyst on his nose large enough to wear its own hat. He asks me if I'm enjoying myself. 

I am. Or I was.

He tells me this is his fifth Cohen concert and that the previous night he had been seated in a private box next next to Crimewatch's Nick Ross.

Probably no coincidence I'm thinking.  He was probably apprehended for a hold-up somewhere.  And then he looks into the middle distance above my head and starts to list the Cohen memorabilia he has acquired over recent weeks until, mercifully, Eva interrupts:

'He's so good looking for his age,' she sighs. 'I mean he's 74 - I'd still sleep with him. '

Not that much of an endorsement, Eva given your recent history. And anyway, so would most of the audience, including Zaphod Beeblebrox here.

'Men age so much better than women,' she adds.

'I disagree,' says another of our party. I went to a college reunion the other week and the women looked fabulous while the men were all a bit thrown together - crushed, crumpled, tired.' (This is a friend who recently paid a grand to a dating agency but never has enough time to go out on the dates.) 'The women had thrown a lot of cash at their appearance ,whereas the men looked as though they'd just sort of shambled up. Men get a lot harder as they get older... '

'Yeah,' says Eva, ruefully, '...except in anyway that's useful.'

'Oh by the way,' she asks, ' That Alain de Botton School of Life thing, they're having a lecture on Seduction. Do you want to come?'

'Ah...I think I'll pass.'  I said.

Table dancing

3 for 2!  My editor at Waddling Duck just rang with the news that I have made it onto the 3 for 2 table at Waterstone's.   I'm ecstatic.  I'm going to have a sticker!  It's really happening.

'They'll probably slap it right over your name, though,' says one of the Pedants, helpfully - I think, but since nobody can pronounce my name surely that can only be a good thing.

I call a friend to enthuse:  'Guess what! '

'What?' (She's not very enthusiastic.)

'I got a 3 for 2.'

'So what did you buy?'

'No, I didn't buy anything, it's for my book.  It's going to be on the table at Waterstone's .'

'What book?  Is it out?'  (A friend, did I say?)

'No, not till February.'

'And it's already doing badly?'

'No - I just told you, it isn't even out yet.'  (Defensively, as ego deflates like old Hallowe'en party balloon still hanging from the kitchen ceiling at Christmas.)

'I thought they only slung the books that weren't doing well on those tables, you know to get rid of the slow ones.'(Heart on table, knife through it.)

'Actually, no, it's very hard to get a sticker.  It's a really, really good thing.'  (It is, isn't it?)

'Well if you say so.'  (I hate this person.)

'It is, look, when you go into a bookshop, where do you go to find a book?'

'I don't.  Buy books, I mean.  Hardly ever go into a bookshop.  I use Amazon.'  (I really hate this person.)

'But when you do...?'

(Reluctantly) '...I go to the tables.'

'You see!  And so there I'll be, 3 for 2!'

'But I always get annoyed when I see that because I don't want 3 for 2, I just want one.'

'And I only read non fiction.' 

I give up.  Somehow I don't think that my book was ever going to bought by this person.  I only hope she isn't representative of my 3 and 1/2 friends . I'm going to be lucky to be the make-up the numbers book - the third you pick up after half an hour reading the back of all the others.  I know that feeling.  I am that person.  I love the 3 for 2  and I do chose a book by its cover.  I'm averse to anything with a cartoon handbag, don't much like the heroine to be Scottish (competition) or Irish (look - some people can't tell the difference) and am particularly fond of the whole dock stretching out into a calm blue expanse of water, sand dunes, high reeds, New England seascape, lake in Maine, Seattle, outer banks, 'Mary-Lou/Taylor/Alice is a woman with a secret in her past' sort of thing. 

And, dear God, isn't the world of fiction simply flooded with secrets not-so-buried in the past?  Are there really that many ruddy secrets?  Who can keep their mouth shut that long?  I am the mother who told her children there was no Santa before they'd even worked it out for themselves.

My book, of course is nothing like that.  No sea.  No dock.  No North Carolina shore.  And the heroine?  Running from a secret in her past?

Positively sprinting, darling.