Byron buys the TLS

This picture is the proof (courtesy of our commercial director, Jo Cogan, left) of the great TLS Boston Book festival subscription drive.

(Or it would be if I could upload it from my machine: full picture-service may have to wait; for the time being just imagine the picture, big TLS banner, Copley Square grass, hundreds of enthusiasts at a wonderful free festival of books)

With the help of our  T-shirted team (thanks everyone) we handed out copies, met current subscribers and signed up new ones. 

The editor will forever have a special thought for the new lady subscriber who accepted our offer of a free signed copy of my Spartacus Road on condition that I inscribed it to her accompanying dog, Byron, who, it seems, normally prefers science fiction but was prepared to make an exception on Saturday for the TLS.

Almost as surprising was the promotional picture for the festival in the back of the cab from the airport which showed the face of my old friend and former foreign secretary, Robin Cook, as a star writer of Boston.

The face on the screen was very clearly the man from faraway Scotland who resigned from Tony Blair's cabinet over the Iraq War and died shortly afterwards although, as in the case of the TLS-selling team, you will have to take my word for it.

There is, however. a Boston writer called Robin Cook who writes novels about reassembling body parts. His most famous is called Coma. I wonder if he knows how reassembled he has become this week in the back of Boston cabs.