There are a few fantasy gigs around, those jobs which we minor celebrities know deep down that we’re never going to be offered, but which we prepare for anyway, just in case. Appearing on Desert Island Discs, hosting Have I Got News For You, playing James Bond in the movies, writing the Spectator Diary. All right, perhaps writing the Spectator Diary is not quite up there with playing James Bond, but it is something of an honour. I have always had a fear, though, that I would be asked to write a diary piece when I was doing absolutely sod-all. People will happily read about glamorous parties, meetings with great men or what it’s like to singlehandedly row around the world blindfolded. They will glaze over, however, if presented with the mind-numbingly dull day-to-day business of being a writer …‘Got up. Took kids to school. Sat at desk for six hours. Am currently writing piece for the Spectator about writing a piece for the Spectator. Paused briefly at 3.05 to wonder if this was any way to spend my life.’
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I expect many a writer has sat bolt upright on their deathbed, looked madly around the room for a way out and shouted, ‘Wait a minute! I forgot to live! The characters in my books had a great time, what the hell have I ever done?’
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As a matter of fact, though, I have been busy. I’ve been doing a month of publicity for my new Young James Bond book. Wait, wait — don’t turn over. This isn’t going to be one of those dreaded ‘book-signing tour’ pieces full of hilarious anecdotes about turning up to a signing in Milton Keynes and finding only one punter there, who thinks you are Julian Barnes, and you sign a first edition of Flaubert’s Parrot ‘Who’s a pretty boy, then? Love, Jules’, so as not to disappoint.
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