My first novel, With One Lousy Free Packet of Seed, was commissioned by Alexandra Pringle when she was fiction editor at Hamish Hamilton, in the days when Penguin were based in Kensington. Alexandra bought the book without an outline: just a couple of chapters – not the sort of thing that happens much nowadays. The novel’s setting – an ailing weekly magazine – was an easy choice for me as I had only recently left The Listener. The pivotal comic plot point of a martyrish sub-editor writing fake “readers’ letters” after hours was based on an unpleasant event in my own life, thus laying it to rest.

There was brief interest for a TV adaptation and I was taken to Norwich to meet Malcolm Bradbury, but the plan came to nothing. At the meeting, Bradbury unexpectedly kissed the side of my head, and I said, “I bet you didn’t do that to Tom Sharpe!” Perhaps that put the lid on it.