There's a kind of archaeology in the editing process. Having finished a rough first draft of The Last Monk about three weeks ago, I've spent much of the intervening time reading and re-reading the entire manuscript, picking out everything from typos and bad grammar, through inelegant sentence structure to the high-end narrative and character lines which should drive the book.

We looked at the football players. They looked at us. One of them had a whisk. This is not a euphemism.

"What did you guys get kicked out of?" asked my new partner.

"Engleschlitchacha," I twitched.

"Oh great," he said. "Not just nerds. Retards, too."

I have a terrible, humiliating and very specific speech impediment. I find it painfully impossible to pronounce the term 'English Literature' in mixed company. I can say 'Russian Literature'. I can say 'English cricket team'. Hell, I can say 'Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevskij' without blinking, but I honestly cannot say 'English Literature' without dislocating my mandible. It has haunted me since I was sixteen when, in a profoundly influential life event, I was psychologically traumatised by a bowl of scone dough.

There is an explanation for this, but to make it requires that we briefly revisit a party I attended a couple of weeks ago.