Two literary outings this week, which is rare for me - I usually spend all my working time indoors in my study, and not talking to a soul. On Tuesday, History Channel asked me to go up to London to appear in a documentary they are preparing on Nostradamus and the Third Antichrist. As I am just about to write a new book for Watkins on the Third Antichrist, this seemed too good an opportunity to miss! I’ve done a few of these documentaries before, so I knew roughly what to expect, but one is nevertheless always a little apprehensive [fear of making a fool of oneself, probably]. The whole thing went surprisingly smoothly, however, with a intelligent chap called Toby interviewing me, and the very nice Eric doing sound and lighting. One never quite remembers what one has said during the course of a concentrated, strobe-lit, two hour interview, but I don’t think I repeated myself too much - the proof, of course, is in the pudding. The documentary will air around July time, and, in the interim, my material is in the hands of an editor I shall doubtless never meet. Let’s hope he/she is a benevolent type….

Yesterday, I attended the Dorset Writers’ lunch at Ferndown Golf Club [Reading, you jet-setter, you!], and thoroughly enjoyed myself meeting fellow toilers at this most mixed and varied of all trades. Apart from a series of frozen plum duffs, all went well, and we happily swopped seats and compared notes. It is at these sorts of dos that one learns all sorts of snippets of information that one might otherwise miss [ensconced dryly at one's desk]. I have now been forewarned to check on the so-called Google settlement and to make sure that any books of mine they intend to digitise [digitalise?] are accurately represented. Quite frankly, I’d rather Google wouldn’t digitise anything at all, and just leave us toilers of the written word alone…we’re quite happy lurking in our garrets and popping up from time to time when least expected. But life isn’t like that. So I shall doubtless be doing as all writers should be doing a.s.a.p., and checking the fine print….