Havering on

I am positively incapable of doing anything until the very last minute.

And so it is that although I have had more than a month to prepare for my first book talk at Havering, I have done precisely nothing about it.

So, with just the correct degree of buttock-clenching tension, I set to work this afternoon. Drafted out a few notes. Decided on the bits of the book that do justice to the true beauty of The Well-Tempered Clavier.

And then Maguire calls.

"What are you doing?" he asks. "Where the hell are you anyway?"

"I'm in a pub," I said. "I'm giving a talk in Havering library tomorrow."

"Havering?" he says. "HAVERING? You're giving your first book talk in Havering? How very appropriate!"

"Why the hell's it appropriate to be talking in Havering? Where is Havering anyway?"

"Well, Mr Coles," he said. "Havering, as any true Scot could tell you, means to blather on witlessly and endlessly and to no purpose."

"Really?"

"Yes! To haver - to just keep blethering on about absolute crap."

"Wow!" I said. "That IS appropriate!"