Eats, Shoots & Leaves was a huge international bestseller, which came as a surprise to everyone. When it was first published in November 2003, I was initially asked to talk about punctuation – but only for a short while. Soon I was pressed to account for the book’s bizarre popularity. By Christmas it had sold over half a million copies. Overall, over the next year or so, it sold more than three million.

Luckily I did find punctuation quite interesting, but in the end (after two or three years of talking about it, including three tours of the USA, and trips to Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand), I did begin to wish it would all go away. Garrison Keillor says somewhere that all authors secretly aspire to one unconditional response from their readers, which goes: “Hail, Sun God. Rise and lead thy people.” But having experienced exactly such a response, I have to say it’s scary.