Mr Priestley has been insufferable

Mr Priestley has been insufferable ever since The Guardian newspaper article. He finds every feeble excuse to telephone and within moments he is once again reminding me that 'we' were on the list of 'best children's books ever'.

How the man has the audacity to say 'we' when he alone takes the credit for those stories I do not understand. He is, like all authors, utterly without any sense of shame.

In desperation, I asked Franz to scream down the line whenever Mr Priestley called, and the telephone has not rung for days.

Bliss.

Among the best

I must apologise for my long absence from this this 'blog'. Often I am simply not in the mood to share my thoughts with you - or indeed with anyone. Believe me - I am doing you all a favour. Often my thoughts are of such a dark hue, that I myself can hardly bear to squint into their shadowy recesses.

But I was encouraged to return to the public eye by a rather extraordinary occurrence. I was reading The Guardian newspaper yesterday and noticed that its superfluous second section (which I normally reserve for Franz's litter tray) had a cover trumpeting a list purporting to be the 'best children's books ever'. I hardly know why I bothered to look inside, but when I did, I was amazed to find Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror therein.

It felt rather strange to have my name listed in among the 'best children's books ever'. I had never thought these tales to be suitable for the ears of mortal children. It was also hard to feel any sense of pride. These are not works of fiction after all.

Though they are but entertainments for the readers of Mr Priestley's books, they are each of them a ragged scar upon my soul.