Shy Führer Syndrome

Regular visitors will have noticed that it’s all been a bit quiet around here recently.

There’s a simple reason for that. I’ve been finishing my book.

I’m a very slow reader, you see.

[That bijou gagette ⓒFrank Muir ca.1979, by the way.]

Said book will appear some time later this year. Don’t worry, you won’t miss it.

I’ll make sure of that. (The teaseriest of small teasers can be found here.)

A friend once described me as a ‘shy führer’, the theory being that although I am somewhat backward in coming forward, once propelled to the front I have to be forcibly restrained from annexing neighbouring countries and designing my own uniform.

This is both a boon and a hindrance in what has now been my ‘day’ job for fifteen years. Shy conductors are rare – führers tolerated less than they used to be.

And so it is with writing. I occasionally pluck up courage to mention it in conversation. My interlocutor, facing no alternative, will invariably ask “oh, what are you writing?”

At this point the shyness kicks in.

“Oh, gosh. Well oshkoshb’gosh … nothing really … it’s … y’know … just a few … this thing … it’s not really …”

What I really want to say, of course, is “I’M WRITING A BOOK BUY MY BOOK IT’LL BE OUT SOON BUY MY BOOK IT’S BRILLIANT”.

But that would be gauche.

Oh the joys of being English.

Anyway, I’ve been writing a book. It’s … well, you know … sort of … gosh, isn’t it hot in here?

I will, as well as blogging more regularly, be referring to it in the coming months.

Ever so BUYMYBOOK subtly, of course.

Console yourselves with this thought: now I’ve emerged from blogging silence (and given the blog a bit of a revamp in the process), the sight of my disturbingly convincing George Galloway impersonation (scroll down if you haven’t seen it)) will be inexorably relegated further and further down this front page until it disappears forever.

Be thankful for small mercies.

Meanwhile, here’s an astonishing view of London that I add for no reason other than that it is … well, astonishing.

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