Nigel gave the lamp a cautious buff and small smoking red letters appeared in the air. "Hi," Nigel read aloud, "Do not put down the lamp because your custom is important to us. Please leave a wish after the tone and, very shortly, it will be our command. In the meantime, have a nice eternity."

It's a guilty secret of a lot of writers, as you get older you don't read as much fiction as you used to, mainly because it's like you are deconstructing it all the time.

The key to winning, as always, was looking as if you had every right, nay, duty to be where you were. It helped if you could also suggest in every line of your body that no one else had any rights to be doing anything, anywhere, whatsoever.

Stop stealing the funeral meats right now, you wee scuggers!" She shouted. The Feegles stopped and stared at her. Then Rob Anybody said: "Socks wi'oot feets?

Most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally evil, but by people being fundamentally people.

I may be daft but I'm no' stupid!

He sighed. It had come to this. He was a responsible authority, and people could use terms like "core values" at him with impunity.