Here he is. Dr Dan Mark III.

After a few days of slightly more competent formatting and one sleepless night when I couldn’t figure out, ay ay ay, why the margins were in a mess, I now have just one more hurdle to clear: to get hold of a printed proof copy and check it, page by page. The printing happens in Poland so it’ll be a week at least until the postie delivers. A whole week in which to clean my desk, get out my winter clothes and lie on a couch eating chocolate, I mean, file my accounts.

My copy editor, the only other person to have read it so far, loved the book and she is a woman of taste. This has encouraged me. It will be a two-book year thanks to the efficiency of self-publishing, so two cheers for the all those big-daddy publishing houses who said, ‘Get thee to a scrap heap, Laurie Graham.’