Hours of endless fun

There's a very silly but addictive game to be played with book titles and author names. I remembered it in my publisher's office yesterday, looking at the cover of a book by new writer Peadar O'Guilin. The cover text was laid out:

Peadar O'Guilin

THE INFERIOR

and I thought how wise it was to do it that way round. Putting his name second would have been unfortunate.

See how the game is played?

Other contenders include Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone J.K. Rowling and the legendary The Sheep Look Up John Brunner. And there's many more here, of which my personal favourites include:

• Fear L. Ron Hubbard
• The Wolves of Willoughby Chase Joan Aiken
• Flush Virginia Woolf
• A Time to Kill John Grisham

But you may have your own, or even better, track down some new ones.

Turl churl

That was nice. As of yesterday morning I had two works in progress - the novel I delivered to my publisher last year and was awaiting feedback on, and the next novel which is now 30,000 words in.

As of a meeting with my publisher, the lovely David Fickling, yesterday evening, I now have two more. One of them is part of a much bigger secret that I hope I can tell here eventually, the other I'll let you know all about once the contract is signed. Still, not much sleep last night as a result of this meeting - ideas for works in progress buzzing around in my head, Jerusalem artichokes from my starter at the QI Club buzzing around in the rest of me.

Ah yes, the QI Club ... very pleasant, nice food, clean and well kept, can't believe it will last another five minutes without going bankrupt. At seven in the evening the place was empty apart from us and three others, and they all worked there. Not what you'd expect of a trendy club and restaurant in the middle of Oxford.

And for no other reason than that the club is in Turl Street, here are a couple of Turl Street jokes.

Q: why is Turl Street like the Church of England?
A: it goes from the Broad to the High and passes Jesus on the way. [Link provided for those who don't get it.]

An American tourist is standing in the middle of Turl Street, looking from one almost identical college on one side of the road to another. She laments: "I just can't tell Lincoln from Jesus." A porter pops his head out of the lodge: "Yes, madam, a lot of Americans have that problem."