The deed is done. I have sent the first draft of The Long and the Short of It (TLATSOI for short) to Unbound (a little later than I intended, thank you so much for pointing it out).

And so begins the game of Book-Production Tennis. BAFF – Structural edits – BAFF – rewrites – BAFF – copy edits – BAFF – rewrites – BAFF – proofreading – BAFF – rewrites – BAFF – cover design – BAFF – internal design etc and so forth. Each stage takes a while, and once everything's been settled to everyone's satisfaction the book can join the queue for actual production.

Now it's out of my hands, at least for a few weeks, I thought I'd give you a sniff of what you have in store. Here are the forty subjects I've written about. Observant readers might notice some recurring themes – I disclaim all responsibiity for any distress caused. Please direct your complaints to your fellow pledgers.

Getting the best out of enthusiastic amateur musicians

Soup

1 + 1 = Bullfinch

Why Kevin Pietersen is the greatest batsman ever to play for England

Second chances

Where’s the cue ball going?

Growing old, growing older

Space travel

The intrinsic link between chocolate, The Wombles and musical theatre in post-millennial Britain

Ice hockey

The best music I know and why it matters

The 1681 Fleming Stradivarius

The art of the sandwich

Red wine stains

How not to cure hiccups at midnight on Ryde Esplanade

Why didn’t anyone tell me this earlier?

Pedants and pedantry

Jean Sibelius

Has cricket ever been ‘cricket’?

Siblings

The four temperaments

Derek Brockway

Music to eat cake by

Tashkent cricket

Elephants

Having an allotment

Cricket clothing through the ages

’Chinese whispers’

Poops

The bassoons in my life

Jack Hargreaves

A scar

A brief history of the Keighley and Worth Valley railway

Melancholy

The language of swallows

The outreach project

Hello dog, goodbye dog

I don’t know why, I just do

Gelato

Where do you go to, my lovely?

So there you have it – a mixture of the very broad and the frighteningly specific. Watch this space for further updates as the process continues.