I go up to London on the train, looking through my manuscript one last time.

The woman sitting next to me keeps peering over my shoulder. I like that she must think that I am a real writer. If this meeting goes well, then perhaps  I might think that about myself too.

When you get off the train at Victoria, each of the platform pillars bears a large advert for a novel. My fantasy life gets very rich at this point.

I wander through Soho and find United Agents. I wait in the reception, then lovely Ariella, Simon’s assistant, comes and gets me. Simon apologises for his suit – he was up in Manchester launching a book for one of his clients, Manchester United Football Club. I like the suit. If this goes well, I think, I may share an agent with Man U – which would go down very well indeed with littleson.

It does go well. I like what Simon says about CUCKOO and my writing and where he thinks he can place me. He is very positive and says exciting things like ‘bidding war’ and ‘literary scout.’ I feel like I am on the threshold of a new and exciting world for which I will need a phrasebook. Like me, he has a theatrical past, so we have a banter about the old days, and people we have in common.

I leave two hours later, kissing Simon on the cheek. At Piccadilly Circus, I take a detour into the big Waterstones there, drifting round, seeing CUCKOO on every shelf. I buy two copies of Strunk and White’s the Elements of Style, one for me, and one for my journalist friend Simon-Sammi’s-Dad, whose 40th I am going to later on.  I am a writer, I say to myself.  I have to stop myself informing the nice young man who takes my money at the till about this.

Later, at Simon-Sammi’s-Dad’s party, I drink too much champagne too quickly on a completely empty stomach. I am at home – walked by my friend Vikki-Sammi’s-Mum, who is concerned for my well being – by 11pm, and snoring by 11.10. I feel like Hemingway-lite or something.