The History That Never Happened

Rewrites to the first 50,000 are now done. I expect I’ll have to do some major rewriting to this half again when the lawyers eventually get at the text, but so far there has been no significant butchering of the book. The anti-poverty and libertarian messages are intact. Charlie Richardson’s view of Margaret Thatcher and the comic book origins of Arkan are intact. Joseph ‘Joe Bananas’ Bonanno’s link to the Tonton Macoutes is intact. Despite the organized crime subject matter, it is clearly a Southwell text. However, I just hope that if I do another book, it doesn’t have any mention of the Kennedy family. I need a new leitmotif.

The editors have also so far not challenged my use of personal touches. Walking down the Lisburn Road is still there. Drinking in The Speaker with my favourite Scotland Yard contact is still there. The Norwegian biker threat involving the shotgun if I mentioned Finland as part of Scandinavia is still there. I don’t want to write bland, characterless reference books and I’m glad Carlton appear to be giving me the chance to write with a degree of personality, humour and heart.

I also finished reviewing the publicity material for the London Book Fair. I’m not sure I’d describe myself the way the publisher does: ‘Political insider… has worked with the security services’, but there’s nothing I could really argue about. It is strange to think that after all these years I am now being so open about my contacts with MI5 when at the time I’d come home from anti-terrorist meetings and Cobra sub-committees and not even breath a word of it to Anne-Marie.

As the work was all done at a reasonable hour and today the health was not too bad, I got to read two books – Jamie’s Italy and Andrew Robert’s What Might Have Been. How can you not love a cookbook that in its introduction talks about the working class, tax avoidance, the olive oil economy and also has a mild go at Southend-on-Sea? It’s a glorious romp through Italian food culture and recipes are good, inspiring and resoundingly non-poncey. I have to admit I was wrong and that I’m now a Jamie Oliver convert (even if I’m still a bit suspicious of the accent).

I was not too impressed by What Might Have Been, but it has given me an idea on how to do a mass-market counterfactual making use of the parallel dimension material that could just be sold to a publisher. I think it would have to be called The History That Never Happened. I know that sounds very Doctor Who, but trust me, I really do think I've got a unique spin on doing counterfactuals. Given my state of play, I do not think it is something I’ll get the chance to undertake, but it might be worth passing on to Tim.