Where do you like to do it?

I’ll never forget my first piece of secondary school Maths homework. Our hapless teacher, fresh out of training college and anxious to be liked, instructed us to decorate the front page of our exercise books with the slogan: “Maths is Fun!”

Even the dimmest wits among us could see she was up to something. If Maths really were fun, then surely it could stand up for itself, without us copying out this patronising propaganda in felt-tip bubble writing. Instead, by starting off on the defensive, the well-intentioned Miss Purkiss ended up exposing her total lack of belief in her own subject. (I need hardly add that, out of a class of thirty, not one of us has gone on to become a Nobel mathematics laureate).

I’m reminded of “Maths is Fun!” every time a publicist sends me an email about a book trailer. Now if you don’t work in publishing you probably don’t know what one of these is, so let me explain.