Anthology of Interest

Okay, it seems everyone wants me to do this documentary. Fine. If he does turn out to be evil, it'll be your fault. So, having decided that, I'd better get on with writing my books, so they can be launched to tie in with the theatrical release of this oscar-winning masterpiece.

I haven't really talked about my literary aspirations here before except very vaguely, so for want of anything better to write about, I'll describe 'How To Be Clever', so that anyone reading this can steal the idea and write it first before I get round to it.

The basic idea of the book is that, unlike some others that promise to increase your intelligence, aptitude, intrinsic moral worth, all that kind of thing, HTBC shows you how to make other people think you're clever, while actually remaining just as thick as you naturally are. This is an art that I've cultivated over the years.

It will include lessons in things like how to memorise a pack of cards (actually quite easy, with just a little bit of practice and the right technique), how to get into Mensa (there are actually very few different kinds of puzzles in IQ tests, so if you know what to look out for, and practice them a bit, you can increase your "IQ" a few notches), how to work out square roots without a calculator (they don't teach that in schools any more, so anyone who knows how to do it must be a real genius, right?), how not to play chess (trust me, once people think you're clever, they'll automatically assume you're a great chess player. The trick is to avoid actually playing a game, at any cost) and much more.

There'll also be lots and lots of useful random facts that you can slip into conversations, encouragement to be more creative and spontaneous (if you're going to be a genius, you have to be eccentric) and probably pictures too, just in case the book gets bought by the kind of person who doesn't like reading.

I've been writing little bits of it every six months or so for the last couple of years, and one of these days soon I'm really going to sit down and put metaphorical pen to paper, then try to get the thing in print. I don't want to approach publishers until I've actually written the whole thing, in draft form at least, because I'd hate to have to meet a deadline. I'm very bad with those.

Of course, I also resolved recently to write another book, didn't I? I've got ideas, but I think in the end I'll just sit down and write the first thing that comes into my head, and see what happens. It might be a masterpiece. It might be the complete works of Shakespeare. It might be about a terrapin called Dean. We'll just have to see.