The TES books editor is looking a little wild at the moment. Hallowe’en is coming, you see, and those bright spirits in publishing houses think there’s nothing wittier than sending the seasonal book complete with a large plastic spider on a bed of cotton wool. Such a good idea that three of them have had it simultaneously.
Fortunately, our books editor is not one to take fright, preferring to balance the spiders festively on her riot of auburn curls.
But she is still recovering from a summons a few years back to the TES reception, where she was greeted by a publicist dressed up in a white coat, sporting a flesh-coloured balloon and fake blood and holding a drip. Our literary lady, who was shortly to face an operation, entirely lost her composure and fled the scene.
And no, she can’t remember what the book was.
