Hello!

A quick and overdue update on The Long and the Short of It. We are, as I mentioned in the last update about a month ago, closing the campaign at the end of the month, come what may. We're now 77% funded, thanks to your generosity. And the book is more than 77% written, so I'm ahead of the game on that one. And I'm confident we will make it to 100% so that you can get the Super Special Bumper Deluxe Flasherama Harder-than-Hardback Limited Edition you've signed up for, rather than the Less Glamorous But Still Jolly Nice Thanks Very Much paperback.

It has been suggested to me that I should make existing pledgers (that's you) aware that you could, if you felt so inclined, add to your already generous contribution to help the book on its way.

My response was that people have already been generous enough and I'd feel like a terrible heel going back to them, cap in hand, when they've already more than done their bit.

They then pointed out the generosity of my absurd World-Cup-related 60% discount offer last summer, and reckoned I had some goodwill in the bank because of it.

I replied that I thought that this would be the most horrendous kind of grifting and hustling and I couldn't countenance such vulgar behaviour.

So I decided not to mention it.

Have an excellent weekend.