February 26th 2009

Hello there …
I have just heard that the publishers have accepted my new Angel book, SHRINE TO MURDER. This is the fifteenth book in the Angel series.
Blow the trumpets. Bang the drum. Put out the red carpet. The Milky Bars are on me! Somebody up there likes me, or is it Inspector Angel they like?
I haven’t got an official publication date yet, but it will likely be December this year or January 2010.

Less pleasing, I had to have a barium enema at the hospital on Monday afternoon.
No solid grub for the one and a half days before the enema … just jelly, consommé, tea and coffee without milk, and water. Absolutely nothing else. Not a lot of fun. They sent me all the detailed preparatory instructions including two pouches of a special laxative, which I had to mix carefully with water, stand well back, leave to stand for five minutes then drink it. It tasted of salty petrol. Well, about two hours later, I knew it had found its target. I think it’s the same stuff they use to power rockets to the moon.
Anyway, as Roy Barraclough asked Les Dawson on his return from his holiday to Athens, ‘Did you get on the Acropolis?’ And the comedian famously replied, ‘I was never off it.’
Well, I was never off our Acropolis.
Anyway, on Monday afternoon, I went to the hospital, went through ‘the procedure’ … it wasn’t so bad. It took about an hour. I returned home and since then I have been back on a normal diet. But it’s now Thursday afternoon and I’m just working away … I’ve had no call to … go back to visit our Acropolis.
It’s all a bit worrying … I’ve heard these stories about doctors doing operations and leaving a retractor or a scalpel inside the patient … I wonder if they’ve left anything up there? I've just remembered, a very rude man once said something to me. I wonder if one of those doctors was him in disguise, and there's a manuscript of one of my books causing the blockage?

Thanks for looking in. I’ll get back to you soon.