Making a difference

Many years ago, when I decided to 'become' a novelist, I shipped myself off to a village in south-west France called St Jean de Fos for three months, banned myself from reading any novels in English (lest they corrupt my style) and became an obsessive maker of French dishes like cassoulet because my first book was about a restaurant critic and I wanted to make it perfectly authentic.

Now that I am older and wiser, I look back on that era and think, 'Poor naive young fool.' I honestly doubt...