You know what they say, if you think you’re important, try giving orders to somebody else’s dog.

(Actually you don’t give orders to a Border Collie, but they will occasionally deign to discuss policy)

But anyway, I’ve been trying to be noticed, having a book to launch means that you try and get everywhere and somehow look like you’re important enough for people to stop and read about. Perfectly sensible people have asked me why. Surely publishers do all that sort of stuff for you? The answer to that is, “Well, sort of.”

The great P.G. Wodehouse said it best.

“Too often when a publisher entertains an author at the midday meal a rather sombre note tinges the table talk. The host is apt to sigh a good deal and to choose as the theme of his remarks, the hardness of the times, the stagnant condition of the…