Tom the Idle Boot-Licker.
Dilemmas, dilemmas … Whether to keep Idle Tom the publisher happy and spill the beans on my ex-wife Anna - or whether to continue this stoic self-imposed silence that I have been maintaining for the past six years.
I mean, on the one hand, I could just give a paper like, say, the Mail on Sunday, all the gory pictures from the marriage and then give them all those lovely little details that their readers would so love to hear about …
And on the other, I could just forget about the fact that I’ve got a book to flog, and I could ignore this heaven-sent opportunity to plug The Well-Tempered Clavier.
"Please, please do it," said Idle Tom. "I think it’ll be good for you. It’ll be cathartic."
"Cathartic?? Do you even know what cathartic means, Idle Tom? All you’re interested in is hawking more copies of the book."
"Fair comment," he said. "We might sell one or two more copies, because the Mail on Sunday does have an estimated readership of over 6 Million. But what I was primarily concerned about was you -"
"Shouldn’t you be playing a violin now?"
"I think it would be good for you. I can sense a lot of hurt, a lot of residual hurt - "
"Where do you learn all this stuff? Have you been having therapy?"
"Yes, you can take your pain out on me, but I sense this residual hurt - and, and, I just feel you need to get it out there."
"Sort of lance the boil?"
"Exactly, Bill. Lance the boil."
"Daresay the Mail on Sunday’s review section would be the biggest hit you’ve ever had?"
"Possibly - though the circulation of the Hampshire Chronicle is pretty buoyant these days."
"OK Tom, I’ll think about it -"
"Please? Pretty please?"
"I said I’ll think about it Tom - now for God’s sake! What the hell are you doing licking my boots!"