Two months ago, as I was in Las Vegas shooting Osama bin Laden with a machine gun, a man connected to the publishing industry was reading the choicest extracts from my novel. Before him were two stacks of paper: one piled heavy and high and marked ‘NO’, the other much shorter, marked ‘YES’ and, I’d like to think, haloed with tinkly stars dancing to a heavenly coloratura.
Broke, bitter, usually half-cut by lunchtime