Things I hate more than editing

In an effort to convince myself that there are worse things in the world than slogging my way through a 629 page manuscript, covering every singe sheet of paper with red biro, I decided to make a little list. After all, think of all the people out there who'd happily swap places so they could lounge about all day in their jammies, eating caviar and sipping the finest champagne*.

So list number one:
Things I Hate More Than Editing.

1. Having my ankle re-broken.
2. The smell in my dentist's waiting room -- sort of a combination of fear, sticky children, and armpits.
3. Any film with Nicholas Cage in it.
4. Coffee Cake. Seriously, coffee is the Devil's bum scratchings. Accept this fact, never buy the damn stuff again and move on.

Number two:
Things I Hate Just As Much As Editing.

1. Painting my bathroom with paint that smells like Vick's Sinex, and goes on like araldite. Honestly, it's like trying to paint a room with the stuff that comes out of big, hairy bluebottles when you squish them. Only not all yellow. But just as sticky.
2. Getting turpentine into the huge blister on my finger from repeated fighting with the paintbrush and the aforementioned sticky paint.
3. In fact, anything involving DIY. I HATE DIY. In big capital letters, you acronymonious bastards.
4. People who wear white socks with black trousers and black shoes. It's wrong, OK?

Number three:
Things That Are Much More Fun Than Editing.

1. Cleaning up cat sick.
2. Stubbing my toe on the edge of the desk.
3. Having fillings done without anaesthetic. This may have something to do with having a dentist that thinks gums should resemble pincushions and the needle's not far enough in until you can feel it scraping bone. Plus you don't get that saggy mouth thing going on for hours afterwards.
4. Taunting Claudia Schiffer with naked photos of Gloria Hunniford.
5. 90% of things involving pickled onions.
6. Making up lists to post on the internet.

I should point out, because I've been asked to by my editor, that my hatred for this edit is not HarperCollin's fault. Nor is it the fault of any of its employees, or those of its wholly, or partially owned subsidiaries. No, the problem is the bearded twit in the jammies.

Me.

I am my own worst enemy, and not for want of competition either.

The people who've read Book Number The Fourth** seem to like it as it is. Yes, there are a couple of minor tweaks needed, but other than that, it's OK. So how come I'm tearing every last bloody badger-buggering sentence apart? Word by sodding word! Aaaaaargh! At this rate the book's going to take twice as long to edit as it did to write. And it wasn't as if I was coasting through the first draft either -- I sweated every last ferret-festering syllable, thinking this would make the edit much smoother.

TWIT!

* Not that I do that -- I can't stand caviar, it does taste all of fish and looks like lumpy motor oil. This is not a good combination when it comes to culinary treats.
** Which may, or may not have a name now, depending on what day of the week it is, and which way the wind is blowing.

What this year's Thieving Cock-Weasel is wearing

The mystery of the credit card fraudsters and the bearded write-ist took a twist for the sartorial today. I got a statement in from Red Kite Apparel Ltd, with a copy of the order some Festering Arse-Monkey made with my credit card details. It came with a nice little handwritten note which said,

"Dear Sir,
This order has been placed with us but the credit card, which is registered to your address, has come up with a red light*. Can you please contact your bank.

Thanks, Jane"

How sweet.

Now being as I'm nosy, and it was my sodding credit card, I went onto their website to find out what the stylish Burglaring Wank-Ferret about town is wearing this season. In full Sherlock Holmes mode** I can tell you that the perpetrator is a man whose flat is worth £84,000 to £91,500 on the open market. He has a 16 inch collar size and a thing for violently-coloured stripy shirts.

For during the day, when he's out doing deals with other people's money the Larcenous Jobbie-Warden favours the Town Shirt:


But he cuts loose when the office closes, and he's had a chance to nick things from everyone's desks, then the Pilfering Fuck-Badger dons a natty little short-sleeve number in various shades of 'Dear God No'.


His piece de resistance though is this delightful little number. Yes, you may think it's a checked shirt, but it is in fact stripy from both directions.


I don't know which offends me more, the fact that he's used my credit card, or that he's used it to buy clothes I wouldn't be seen dead in.

* Presumably as a warning, not some sort of nod to the kind of district where ladies of negotiable favours ply their trade.
** Only without the pipe, silly hat, violin, and addiction to opiates.

Criminality

I have proof, if proof were needed, that the kind of people who attend Harrogate (or the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival to give it its official sponsor-approved moniker) are weirdoes. As part of my Getting Vigorous panel I did a random survey: "What's the best way to dispose of a body?" I asked, with my usual winsome smile. The results were enlightening, but not as much as the amount of thought some people put into the answer.

"Best way to dispose of a body? Hmm... Body... Hmm..." I thought everyone would have their favourite method on the tip of their tongue. After all, surely we all lie in bed in the wee small hours when we can't sleep, thinking of the best way to get rid of our neighbour's bloated corpse before the smell starts making the postman suspicious. Because if Mr Postie gets suspicious and starts asking questions we're going to have another dead body on our hands, aren't we?

Or is that just me?

Anyway, the results of the Great Harrogate Body Disposal Survey are as follows:

18% said they'd chuck it in the sea
17% would dissolve it in acid / lye / lime / caustic soda
17% said they'd bury it -- in something, with something else, etc.
15% want to burn the body
10% would feed it to the pigs
6% would hide it
4% would eat it
4% would feed it through a wood-chipper
3% like to throw their corpses out with the rubbish
3% would throw it out of a helicopter
3% Abstain

Now I don't know about you, but I find the low rating of cannibalism on the list disappointing. And there was me thinking we were becoming more food conscious as a society. Shocking. But even more disturbing is the fact that 3% abstained. Why? What were they trying to hide? They say it's always the quiet ones you have to watch, and anyone who won't contribute to a perfectly wholesome topic like getting rid of a body, has obviously been up to something. "What? Dispose of a body? Er... no idea. Why do you think I'd know anything about that? I wasn't even there at the time... not that anything happened. No... er... Oh look -- a bee!"

Or maybe they just have a general criminallishness about them. Maybe they were the festering cock-weasels who ran up over a thousand pound on my credit card last week.

Yes, while I was in Harrogate someone had spoofed my credit card details -- apparently they run your name through an algorithm to generate X-thousand possible card numbers, then fire them automatically at a number of online purchasing sites to see if they've got it right. In my case this was two payments of £1.50 to Stagecoach. Once they know they've got it right, the rabid arse-monkeys go to town with their internet shopping spendathon:

£113.00 at Red Kite Apparel
£74.58 at ASDA Home Delivery
£96.50 at Avon Cosmetics
£345.00 at Vaportech Dry Steam
£285.00 at Vaportech Dry Steam again -- clearly whatever it was they had, it was very, very dirty.
£171.00 at Tesco Home Delivery
So that's a smidgeon over a thousand pounds in twenty four hours. Wankers.

Luckily the Royal Bank's fraud prevention people were on the ball and killed the card, otherwise I wouldn't have noticed anything till my statement came in.

I want to know where those 3% abstainers were. J'accuse Abstainers, j'accuse!

Happy Birthdays and Bananas

You wouldn't think it to look at him, but today Agent Phil is another year older. 25* and he doesn't look a day over 57. Sadly his birthday fell too late to actually happen during the Harrogate festival this year so we've not been able to buy him a huge round of birthday drinks, but given the state of all our livers following the last four days, that's probably just as well.

Yet again Harrogate was a great festival of drinking and talking rubbish and eating too much and sometimes going to panels to break up the monotony of hedonistic excess.

Thursday Highlights

• Cheering for Allan Guthrie as he staggered off looking stunned with the Theakston's barrel o'fun** on the first night
• Catching up with people I haven't seen for ages, and meeting new ones.
• Seeing several of the county's top crime writers launch into playground antics with associated injuries (Simon Kernick nearly crippled Agent Phil in a game of 'slapsies')

Bedtime: 02:30
Hours of sleep: 2

Friday Highlights

• Seeing Val McDermid being interviewed by Mark Lawson. Which was interesting enough to keep my knackered brain awake after only two hours of lousy sleep and a great deal of the night staring at the ceiling wondering what the hell was wrong with my brain - didn't it know I was knackered?
• Going for lunch with Simon, JamesO and Agent Phil at the Loch Fine restaurant and finally having THE TOWER OF FISH!!! Mmm, fish in a tower... What could be better than that? And then watching Simon and Phil deface nearly every photograph in the festival programme with a black pen: blacked out teeth, extra glasses, scars, arrows through the head, and willies everywhere. Childish, but very, very funny.
• Catching the Snobbery with Violence panel where it was David Roberts versus the rest of the world.
• Going out for dinner and eating far too much.
• Meeting Laura Lippman - who is scarily lovely and went out of her way to reassure me I hadn't made an unmitigated tit of myself during the Foul Play. She's a wonderful liar.
• Hearing John Rickards tell the same anecdote back-to-back twice. He was terribly, terribly weaseled at the time though.

Lowlights

• Calling it a night before Agent Phil did his soon to be legendary running and jumping monkey impersonation. Apparently it was quite spectacular, in a simian sort of way.

Bedtime: 01:00
Seeping pills: 1
Hours of sleep: 6

Saturday Highlights

• Waking up when the alarm goes off at half seven not having spent the night feeling like someone in the lad of nod hated me.
• A full Scottish Breakfast with Christopher Brookmyre and Al 'Horror Bollocks' Guthrie.
• Seeing my panel not crash and burn. This was thanks to the excellent participation of Michael Marshall, Zoë Sharp, Simon Kernick and Caroline Carver. Stars one and all, even if we did loose a couple of audience members when we started talking about cannibalism.
• Going back to Loch Fine for yet more fish, but no defacing of photographs. Even if there was a lag between courses of about three and a half years.
• Heading out to a fancy hotel for dinner with the HC crowd, then having to sit in the dark for fifteen minutes while everyone else ate their desserts because James Twyning*** convinced the hotel staff it was my birthday. Eventually the waiter comes in with my summer pudding, into which has been inserted a mortar-bomb-style firework. Everyone sings happy birthday. Which is nice, if about four and half months too late. Daft as spanners, the lot of them ;}#
• More hanging around in the bar.
• Being swept up in an unexpected hug from Alex Barclay that managed to rearragne about three of the vertebra in my neck.

Lowlights

• Hitting the snooze button... then getting my quarter to eight alarm cramp. Right down my left thigh. Like being wired up to one of those nasty tens machines with extra teeth-gritting and pain. Then limping for the rest of the day.

Bedtime: 03:30
Herbal sleeping remedies: 2
Hours of sleep: 6

Sunday Highlights

• Watching the 'What Really Gets Me Going' panel and doing a lot of laughing as Mark, Val, Christopher, and Daphne had a damn good rant about pretty much everything.

Lowlights

• Having to go home.

I'm already looking forward to next year. But I think my liver will need a bit of a breather before then...

* This is either shameless flattery, or a barefaced lie, depending on how you look at it.
** And yes, I actually do mean that.
*** If he's not going to spell my name right, I don't see why I should spell his.

T-totaller wins beer prize!!!

You may have heard certain rumours (no, not the one about Anne Widdicombe, two sailors and the jar of marmalade) and yes they are true - the Theakston's OP Crime Novel of the Year is TWO WAY SPLIT by Allan 'Horror Bollocks' Guthrie.

Whilst I'm disappointed and deeply bitter not to have won, I have to say that I can't think of a better person to have lost to. It's a great book and Allan's a lovely guy (though rude as a leather-clad squirrel) so well deserved.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to watch the opening panel of the festival: Val McDemmid not being interviewed by Jenni Murray (who's not well).

This time tomorrow...

I intend to be well into my first pint of the Harrogate Crime Festival (or rather the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival to give it its full and proper title), hanging out with the assembled hordes of the Billingham Talk Zone, and talking rubbish with likeminded persons of a delicate and sensitive nature. Or just getting completely weaseled with a bunch of crime writers, whichever comes first.

Getting weaselled has the added advantage of acting like an anaesthetic when it comes to not winning the TOP CNoTY on the Thursday night. Instead of storming off in a bearded huff, or taking a swing at the actual winner, I'll be well into, "You're my bestest mate, an' I... I... urp... oh, excuse me -- that one tasted of cheese and onion crisps... where was I? More beer!" And all will be right with the world.

For those of you playing along at home, my prediction for the winner would be... Allan Guthrie, or Christopher Brookmyre. At least that means that someone Scottish will be walking off with the little wooden barrel of joy! Hoots mon!

I'm also going to be gathering data for my panel on Saturday: Getting Vigorous, with which to flummox and fluster my protagonists: Caroline Carver, Simon Kernick, Zoë Sharp, and Michael Marshall (nee Smith). I've never moderated a panel before, so I've decided to make things a hell of a lot more difficult than they need to be. That'll teach me!

As far as I can see, Saturday's Getting Vigorous will either be a lot of fun, or a complete and utter arse-biting disaster. I'm hoping it's the former, but I'll take my hipflask with me, just in case.

To the drinks cabinet!

Dirty tricks

In a cynical attempt to garner more votes for the TOP CNoTY award, Mr Allan Guthrie has stooped to writing Harry Potter Fanfic for Scotland on Sunday. He's also been planting dreadful rumours that the nervous-looking potato-man in this snippet from Legal TV is actually me! When you and I both know I'm much more suave and sophisticated*.

*ahem*

Luckily I can retaliate by posting this link to another of the Legal TV slots, where you can see Mr Guthrie in all his evil glory!

Would you buy a used car from this man? I think not. Mostly because he doesn't sell them, but it's the principal of the thing that's important.

In other news, the Edit Of DOOM is slowly creaking back into life again. I described this recently like giving a rabid badger a pair of pliers and inviting it to practice dentistry on your teeth, whilst simultaneously nailing burning squirrels to your knees... I think I may have been under exaggerating that one a bit. I probably need to work in something about standing up to your calves in raw sewage and angry seagulls.

And in otherer news I completely failed to post a link to the new, summer edition of Spinetingler. I blame the Edit, the edit blames the cat, the cat blames me, and so goes the circle of shame. And it's a bumper issue this season: definitely worth a good, long browse.

What fun!
* OK, OK, so I look like a Muppet who's in the process of being electrocuted. Did you have to bring that up? Jesus, some people...

Drug-crazed ramblings

I seem to spend a lot of my time sneezing at the moment. Not for recreational purposes -- because that would be just weird -- but from a delayed sense of twisted hay fever. When I was a wee lad, running around with scabby knees and rosy cheeks, I was on antihistamines 365 days a year, with one day off on leap years. Sneezing and dripping and walking around sounding like I'd stuffed worms up my nose. And then I did a detox diet thing following a particularly nasty dose of Christmas and stopped taking the little yellow pills... and the sneezing went away.

That was ten years ago and I never looked back. Which makes reverse parking difficult if you don't like occasionally flattening old ladies. And then last year I had the surgical equivalent of spelunking perpetrated on my poor, delicate nose. Blah, blah, blah and much whinging later, I didn't sneeze for over a year. Nada. My nose, she no work. Plus it had this strange habit of smelling things that weren't there.

"Hey," I'd say to She Who Must Be Asked To Sniff Things From Time To Time, "can you smell something eggy here?"
Then she'd look at me as if I was daft and say, "No."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive."
"Hmmm..." and then I'd march off into another part of the house, where the smell wasn't, then march back again to where the smell still was. "Are you sure you can't--"
"Enough of the sniffing things! You need to go lie down in a darkened room, preferably a long way away from me, you olfactory freak."

And now, after a year and a half of ick, the bit of my nose that deals with sneezing and dripping seems to have woken up again. Which is not exactly what I'd describe as a good result.

You may be wondering why I'm telling you about my proboscis, rather than the usual gerrymandering codswallop you've come to expect -- well, that's because She Who Must Express An Opinion Whether It's Asked For Or Not thinks that my posts shamelessly shilling for votes read like the Drug-Crazed Ramblings Of A Halfwit Lunatic. Which isn't exactly the best review I've ever had... Mind you, it's not the worst either. That would be:

Local Letdown, 13 Jul 2005
Reviewer: A reader

Like a prior contributer, I can only assume that the positive reviews this book has received are due to HarperCollins and the author's friends and family. This is proof, if proof need be, that there is no book so lousy that it can't be published.

I bought this book in support of local 'talent', and genuine interest in a novel set in my hometown. I was quite prepared to enjoy it but sadly it was a dismal letdown. MacBride describes an Aberdeen that I didn't recognise and characters with all the depth and realism of a Punch & Judy show. If he couldn't accurately convey the city then I doubt his depictions of policing and journalism were any better. A talent to rival Ian Rankin? Absolute nonsense. I am a great lover of Rankin's work and to promote this author as a rival is utterly misleading. The real mystery contained within this novel is why it was published. Terrible - avoid.

Ah, you've got to love Amazon.co.uk, don't you? ;}#

Anyway, enough of the electioneering already. Now I must go prepare for the panel I'm hosting on Saturday at Harrogate, and maybe do some of that editing thing I've been avoiding so successfully.

To the thing!

I kiss your babies!

They say a week's a long time in politics, but then they're a bunch of lying bastards. A week's exactly the same length of time for politicians as it is for Doctors, Lifeguards, Monkey Trainers, and Zombie Lords of the Underworld. I think if you're a nipple polisher the time probably flies by though. So a week's a longer time in politics than it is in the field of nipple polishing, otherwise it's exactly the same length.

However, it's exactly the right length of time for people to become embroiled in the most twisted kind of scandals and sleaze involving three nuns, a roll of duct tape, and some naked goldfish. Now far be it from me to lend any credence to the stories you may have seen in the tabloids* about the other candidates' involvement. But let me just say that there's no smoke without fire and leave it at that. You're all adults, after all, you can make your own minds up. Unless you've forgotten to wear your tinfoil helmets, in which case your brain is mine! ALL MINE! BWAHAHAHAHAHAH... *ahem*

"But," I hear you cry, as you rapidly line your hat with Bacofoil, "how did you manage to come upon a device capable of controlling our brainwaves?"
Funny you should ask that (well, not that funny when you consider that I used my brainwave controlling machine to make you ask that very question as an excuse for me to tell you another anecdote designed to make you think that voting for me is actually a good thing) because a couple of years ago I stumbled on a plot to take over the world.

Now normally I wouldn't be telling you about this, what with the potential mass hysteria and panic, but as it's Friday: what the hell. There I was, minding my own business lurking in Anne Widdicombe's wheely-bin with a pair of binoculars and some Greek yoghurt when I overheard a pair of squeaky voices discussing global domination. I looked round and who do I see, but a pair of cockroaches called Norman and Colin (you've probably met one of their 300,000,000 brothers and sisters). Well, long story short I disguised myself as a woodlouse and followed them back to their secret underground lair.

And you'll never guess who I bumped into there: Zargle N'Phing'ig'ning 'tick-tick-tick P'legm, leader of the Cockroach Liberation Army and celebrity chef (you've probably seen him on 'Can't Spread Disease In A Fast Food Joint, Won't Spread Disease In A Fast Food Joint'). We got to talking about his upcoming invasion plans and he was telling me how the cockroach legions would rise up on Monday and overthrow the humans using this really neat machine they'd made that sends out 'thinky' rays to mess with our minds. I said Monday wasn't really good for us, how about Wednesday instead?

Well, Zargle (we've been on first name terms ever since I lent him the money to open up a falafel stand in Milton Keynes) said he couldn't do Wednesday on account of his line dancing class, how about Thursday? In the end, the only day we could both come up with was a Tuesday three weeks away for the overthrow of mankind.

Then I said, "You know, I'm really proud of the way you've overcome your difficulties to get into the position where you can wipe human beings from the face of the planet. Good for you."
And Zargle said, "Why thank you! I always... Hey, what do you mean 'difficulties'?"
"Well, your nomenclature's always been a bit of a drawback, hasn't it?"
"Nothing wrong with our taxonomy," he said, getting a little huffy, "Insecta -- Pterygota -- Neoptera -- Dictyoptera -- Blattodea. What the hell's wrong with that?"
"No, not your scientific classification, your name: cockroaches."
"What the hell's wrong with being called a cockroach?"
"There's no need to get all defensive."
"I'm not being defensive!"
"Look, I'm just saying that it can't have been easy being named after male genitalia. OK?"
"I wasn't named after--"
"Dude," I said, placing a friendly hand on his carapace, "it's OK."
"But we're not!"
"You're basically knobroaches."
"We... But..." And at that point he started to go all red in the mandibles. "I didn't..."
"Don't worry, if it doesn't bother anyone else that you're named after our sinful man-winkies, why should it bother you?"
"I'm not a knobroach..." And then he started to cry.
Now it's never nice seeing the leader of an invading army hell-bent on the annihilation of the human race, sobbing like a little girl, but I did my best to reassure him. Even took him out for sticky buns and lashings of ginger beer, but in the end it was impossible. He was a broken roach and the invasion was cancelled due to low self-esteem in the assembled hordes of bloodthirsty insects. They had a car boot sale the next weekend and I managed to pick up their mind control device for a very reasonable price. Which is how come I to be in possession of something capable of twisting people to my dark and dubious purpose.

Now while I'm sure that the other candidates have excellent credentials and haven't been arrested for anything involving sheep lately, none of them have saved mankind from certain death. With the exception of Mr Guthrie, who did once defeat a whole army of fanatical hamsters by infiltrating their ranks and then introducing them to heavy metal, kinky sex, and soft drugs. Allegedly.

* But probably not, as I just made it up this minute.

Stranger than fiction

I have no idea why, but I've been having a lot of difficulty posting about the Daggers. I have no idea why, but I can't see how to go about it. I tried writing a travelogue-style post, but it bit the big hairy biscuit. So I tried something else, and it was poop-flavoured too. And a third time... And a fourth...

So I'm going to put on my serious trousers for a second and say that the rumours are true: I somehow managed to wheech off with a very unexpected Dagger on Thursday night. Which is especially surprising given the extraordinary quality of the shortlist. So convinced was I that there'd be no chance in hell I'd walk off with any silverware that I didn't even bother writing a speech. What a twit.

After the ceremony I got to meet the judging committee:

(from left to right - Muriel Waldt, Miriam Bennett, Jonathan Gibbs, Kim Wallis, some beardy bloke brandishing stolen cutlery, Will Cooban, and that strange blob on the far right is Mark Benjamin's arm)

And they were all really, really nice people.

At the risk of coming off all Gwyneth Paltrow here I'd like to thank everyone at HarperCollins (especially my lovely editors Jane Johnson and Sarah Hodgson, and the incredible force of nature that is Amanda Ridout); my super Agent, Mr Phil Patterson (have monkey will travel); librarians everywhere; Random House (who sponsor the Dagger in the Library) and all the lovely, slightly-demented people who buy, borrow, and most importantly read books.

Right, that's enough sincerity: tomorrow we return to our cockroach-flavoured election special!

On the campaign trail

In the interests of a fair and open debate for the ongoing elections I thought I'd better come out and say that I don't believe any of those horrible rumours circulating on the internet at the moment* regarding the behaviour of my fellow candidates, Anne Widdicombe and a jar of Hellman's mayonnaise.

They're right to maintain a dignified silence on the whole sordid affair, and you certainly shouldn't take their reticence to be drawn on the subject as a sign of sinful, sinful guilt.

Instead I though I'd share a rambling anecdote designed to con you into thinking I'm worth perjuring yourself at the poling booths for.

As you can see from the picture, I was in Tokyo staying with my good friend Godzilla. After a messy divorce he was thinking of getting out of the 'battling rubbery-looking super villains' game. "Maybe you should take a sabbatical?" I said to him, "Take a little time to yourself and recharge your batteries. Maybe do some painting?" And while he was away learning watercolours in the Algarve I would look after his flat: water his plants, feed his cat, things like that.

Anyway, there I was trying to find a jug to put some Baby Bio in when who should call but MI6 -- they were having a spot of bother with some missing love slaves -- according to their sources this bloke called Scaramanga had kidnapped them, but in a stroke of luck they'd found out he was in Tokyo getting some more carnivorous Koi Carp for his secret-agent-eating tank -- and would I mind rescuing them?

Well I was out at the pet shop picking up another packet of Whiskas when who do I see, but the very man himself, looking for a tub of secret agent bits to feed his fishies. Long story short: he invites me back to his secret lab for sake and sushi.

There we are tucking into some excellent tuna nigiri when the doorbell goes and there's Blofeld. He'd come round to return Scaramanga's fondue set and the video of this year's Eurovision Song Contest. Scaramanga asks him to stay for tea, but we're all out of sake, so we grab the love slaves and head off down the nearest karaoke bar where Blofeld starts telling us about his latest plan for world domination.

Now you don't need me to tell you that it involved a huge amount of technical blah-blah-blah and nuclear this and biological that -- the usual super villain who's got too much time on his hands nonsense. "Look," I told him, "why go to all that bother and expense when you can just write a brain virus and hide it in an MP3 file? The Spice Girls are getting back together, you could probably piggyback the brain melting drone on one of their new songs. No one would notice the difference."
"I didn't know the Spice Girls were getting back together," says Blofeld.
"Oh yes," says Scaramanga, "people think the motive's purely financial, but between you and me I think it's because Posh Spice has had bugger all creative success since the group folded in February 2000 after their R&B styled album Forever did badly in the charts."
"Oh for God's sake," says Blofeld, "you're so gay."
"Am not."
"Are too! It's the three nipples isn't it?"
At this point I order more sake and then we all get up and do You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling, though if I'm being brutally honest, Scaramanga was a bit flat.

Scaramanga wasn't impressed when Blofeld got up and sang Summer Loving - he'd been looking forward to doing that one himself all evening...

An hour later and everyone's getting a bit squiffy: there's this big debate going on about whether or not Sporty Spice goes like a bunny, when who turns up but James Bond. He's three sheets to the wind and brings the whole evening to a crashing halt with his dreadful, tone-deaf karaoke rendition of On The Good Ship Lollypop. Honestly, I didn't know where to look.

So we grabbed him, took him back to Scaramanga's hotel room, smeared him in vegemite and fed him to the carnivorous Koi Carp who were swimming about in the bathtub.

All in all it was a fun evening and the love slaves agreed it was the most fun they'd had in ages and we should really do it again some time.

* Not even the ones I started.