The Vicarmobile was out of service this morning, so I travelled to London with Punk, Donbledore and Dr Unnecessary courtesy of the deconstructed relics of British Rail. The best that I can say is that we arrived at Samantha Tiffany's elegant mews office less late than I expected.
Much as I hate, hate , hate, working lunches, Samantha's option of sandwiches from Pret a Manger worked well. Punk faces important decisions of his books in the coming days. Samantha was gently edging him in the direction of "literature" :
Less laziness
No ellipses
Fewer random digressions
More stylised or "heightened" speech
Less deliberate trashing of his poor readers' attempts at the suspension of disbelief
More dramatic plots to set the pulse racing in a whodunnit style
Admirable thoughts, although they may risk crushing the very fabric that makes Punk's writing appealing. As you read his words, you know you are entering an insane world, which will constantly frustrate your feeble attempts to progress logically through the plot.
Samantha's view is that Punk must earn the right to "fuck round with the reader". Punk's view is that when you pick up the book you do so entirely on his terms. A lack of compromise which I support, while at times questioning the results.
The meeting with Samantha was followed by another with Huw Jones – who continues to be the most impressive man I have yet met in his field, namely the financing of television and film projects. The meeting lasted barely ten minutes. Dr Unnecessary had four questions, which were answered with accuracy and enthusiasm, before we all parted company. Oh that all life could be so simple.
The final meeting of the day proved to be a complete pleasure. Dinner with Roger Borer, the black suited, pony tailed beast of terror, and the svelte, endlessly charming Karen Aires – a close friend of hers is struggling with the latter stages of cancer, but is apparently responding astoundingly well to Thalidomide. I pray for her, and my friend Jane, who is approaching the end of her first course of Chemotherapy.
I must confess that I slipped the dinner onto a company credit card. As four of the six people around the table have contributed vast amounts of time and energy to my plans for televisual world domination entirely for free, I felt it was a justified business expense. I have no doubt that it will be placed in the appropriate pigeonhole and recouped from some feeble income stream, if one ever arises.
"Our living is as rich as our attention is available."
