Tuesday lunchtime saw me in a basement in the bowels of Heffers bookshop in Cambridge, busy defacing my own books. Sorry, signing them. As these were for the serious collectors, I was ‘signing, lining and dating’ them – writing a line from the book, as well as my signature and a date. And there were a lot of them – one collector had ordered six. I hope he (and somehow I think it was a he) has a glance at the text before he puts it away in a darkened vault, or eBay, or wherever they are destined to end up. Fortunately, Richard from Heffers had chosen a variety of lines – including ‘leave no tern unstoned’, and ‘birds, the feathered kind’ (but not ‘look at the tits on that!’ thank God) as well as the opening sentence – so I had a little variety. And he fed me a lovely sandwich lunch, introduced me to two charming ladies from his book group and sent me off with a bottle of wine, so I’m not complaining. It was an interesting glimpse into the world of the serious book collector. A bit like the world of bird watching, perhaps?