Whilst I would happily run through all the intimate details of My Life So Far (by John Sansom), from the day I rode my Vespa 125 to start work on the Sutton and Cheam Advertiser (when it was a broadsheet) through to some interesting times in Fleet Street (when it was in Fleet Street), a decade of seeing the world at someone else’s expense (aka travel journalism) then running my own PR business and getting people with very poor eyesight to pay me for some photography – who cares? And let’s not even mention the banjo. No, really.
Even if I did include all the crashes, the facial reorganisations – as you can see I now have a good face for radio – it’s basically been a blast and, with a bit of luck this novel lark may prove to be another one, even if I only end writing stuff I like and to hell with everything else.
By ‘everything else’ I mean; pots of money, international fame, Hollywood first nights, global serial rights, a ‘reputation’, teams of American interns writing the latest adventures of ex-special forces kingpin Zeke Armstrong for you, and lots of triangular fags. I ask you, can it compare with the truly uplifting experience of being half way down your second pint of ‘Crudgington’s Fantastical Old Gold Medal Bitter?’ (Bill Tidy) Probably.