More Fool Me (39 page)

If days be good, they shall pass, which is a lowering thought. If they be bad, they shall pass, which is cheering. I suppose it is enough to know this and cling on to it for some small comfort when confronted by the irredeemable and senseless folly of the world; to be a little like Rafael Sabatini’s Scaramouche who was ‘born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad’.

But I know enough of myself and the instability that seems to be my birthright to be sure that I have not yet learned this lesson.

More fool me.

Postarse

Since there is no preface there must be a postarse. I have many people to thank. Literary parturition can be as messy and bloody a business as the obstetric kind. This book would not have been possible without all those who expend so much thought and energy clearing the thicket of my engagements and commitments in order to give me enough time to write. They include but are not limited to my writing agent Anthony Goff and my dramatic agent Christian Hodell. Most especially, of course, I owe everything to the book’s dedicatee, my patient, efficient, kind and wonderful Personal Assister, Jo.

Everyone at Penguin Books has been sublimely professional, useful, wise, understanding and fun: above all my epically perfect editor Louise Moore and her stellar team: Hana Osman, Katya Shipster, Kimberley Atkins, Beatrix McIntyre, Roy McMillan and so many others. Once again David Johnson has taken on the task of organizing the author tour events, cinema streamings and those other oddities that constitute a book launch in the twenty-first century. His skill and experience have made that sluttish side of selling so much more enjoyable than it would otherwise have been.

Thanks to everyone mentioned in this book: some of you have read the manuscript and kindly corrected my memory, others have used the Search facility to jump from one mention of their name to the next and then ‘signed off’.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.