So one dud writer can usually spot another. When we were alone together in the kitchen Guy asked me what I did and I told him, stressing my links with various literary magazines and completely inventing a fiction consultancy with Hornig Ultrason. I can invent: I can lie. So how come I can't invent? Guy said, 'Really? How interesting.' I sent a sort of pressure wave at him; in fact I was rubbing my thumb and forefinger together beneath the table when he said, 'I've written a couple of things . . .' 'No kidding.' 'A couple of stories. Expanded travel notes, really.' 'I'd certainly be happy to take a look at them, Guy.' 'They aren't any good or anything.' 'Let me be the judge.' They're rather autobiographical, I'm afraid.' 'Oh,' I said. 'That's okay. Don't worry about that.