This book is why some people think I'm an arsehole. See, I used to own this book in the early 1980s and, being young and naïve, when a guy I used to work with (Russ Melling) asked to borrow it from me, I let him. I never saw it again and bitterly regretted having let it out of my clutches. Lesson learned.

Fast-forward to now, and I've just been telling you about how brilliant such-and-such a book is and that you should definitely read it. You ask me if you can borrow it and I think about Russ Melling and Strange Ecstacies, and I also think that I don't really know you that well and I don't know that you can be trusted to return it, undog-eared and unspine-cracked, so I'm going to have to say "No," and you're going to think I'm an arsehole. ( )