Like most impoverished authors I found the news yesterday that Jeffrey Archer has signed a £12 million book deal nauseating. The only time I ever read an Archer book I was laid up in a German hospital with brain damage. I had been out cycling when a local Munich resident in a vast Mercedes decided to drive into me, sending me catapulting over his bonnet. I landed on the road, on my head. They kept me in hospital for ten days, during which time I had several brain scans to determine whether I was ready to resume life. I could hardly remember my name so decided to read something easy going. I chose Kane and Abel. I can’t remember anything about it to be honest, but I do remember meeting Archer a few years later at a Shepherd’s Pie and Champagne party in his penthouse flat overlooking the Thames. He was an odious little man, really quite unpleasant, and I loathed him on sight. He struck me as the kind of man who is really only out to get what he can out of people and overly pompous with it. Someone told me a story about calling him the day after he received his peerage and being told there was no Mr Archer at home, there was a Lord Archer. Oh puhleease. I guess you have to admire his tenacity and his will to succeed, but what a wally.