Alan Clark was educated in Scotland, where he wrote his first children’s novel at the age of twelve. He dropped out of King’s College, London and landed in the advertising business in which, as a copywriter and creative director, he has won several international awards. In recent times he has digressed into travel journalism, specializing in western Mediterranean, and has also compiled a quiverful of celebrity profiles, ranging from film stars and theatrical knights to bishops and duchesses. He finally got around to writing this novel when Sue Townsend bluntly informed him that he had wasted his life so far.