Hello Shedfolk!

I got the latest figures back from Unbound today and there have been no new pledges for a month now so it looks like 103% is a final total. And a damned fine total it is too! I can never really thank you all enough for making this book possible. All I can do is try to justify your faith in me by producing the very best book that I can.

I'm perilously close to finishing the first draft; I set myself a deadline of the end of June to deliver the book to my editor, the splendid Mathew Clayton, himself a damnably fine writer and one of the organisers of the Brighton Literary Festival. I am completely on track to deliver on time. So hurrah for that!

The final chapter headings are:

Introduction: Cop sucker

1:         Imperfect pitch

2:         If life gives you zebras … 

3:         The wizard of Waltham Forest

4:         The ape that moved a planet

5:         Bring on the Shetland ponies

6:         No one ever got sent on a linear thinking course

7:         Lobsternomics

8:         ‘If they go to Barry Manilow it’s excessive force’

9:         Re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic

10:       Tim Minchin hopes I won’t die

11:       The phantom bus stops of Düsseldorf

12:       The sensuous adventures of Kiki and Bouba

13:       ‘A pig don’t get no heavier the more you weigh it’

Epilogue: To get to the other side

Bibliography and Sources

Intriguing, no? I'm planning to make a few extracts available in the next few weeks but ONLY to subscribers. It seems only fair as you've made the thing happen.

On a slightly different tack, the first proofs are back for Saving Bletchley Park, the Unbound book by Dr Sue Black that I've contributed a fairly large amount of material to. The subscribers' edition is out in the Autumn and Sue and I have already been signed up for our first literary festival appearance together.

Watch this space for more news!