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Inspiration comes from the strangest places. This morning, for example, it came from a t-shirt.

Wherever you go, someone seems to want to sell you a t-shirt which says you've been there. If there are people with wallets standing around having a good time, some guy will have a stall selling 'I Heart Paris', 'Rolling Stones Hip Replacement Benefit Concert 2005', 'My Parents Went To Chernobyl And All I Got Was This Lousy Extra Eyeball'.

So I reached a point in my book where several thousand people turn up to a big public event in San Francisco, organised at short notice by my villain, billionaire playboy Delaney Miscamble.

I wanted to make it full of excitement and celebration, but Miscamble was annoyingly vague on the details of what is actually going to happen. People were just milling around, a bit nonplussed. Not precisely the thrilling chapter I had in mind.

And then, in my mind, a guy walked past selling t-shirts. On the t-shirts was printed 'WHATEVER'S ABOUT TO HAPPEN, I WAS THERE'. From him came a flood of other ideas, from the outbreak of civil war in a marching band to the exquisite, liberating sensation of pushing a stilt-walking juggler off a pier.

All that cheered up the crowd no end and allowed me to get on with writing the new chapter, which is exciting and has fairy floss in it.