Preface

       Containing the customary avowals, apologies, concealments of artistry, confidences, explanations and precepts, and a note on the tipping of winks

      I worked on a farm once, when I was first married, in County Antrim, and one of the men I worked with had been in London doing the roads, during the early Seventies, at the beginning of the Troubles, and he claimed that things were so bad in those days that he would post ham in an envelope back home to his family in Belfast. I was never sure if he was having me on or not – it’s always difficult to tune in to another nation’s sense of humour, and I was an Englishman abroad – but I always thought it was a nice idea, and I like to think of this book as similar in some way, as the equivalent of some ham in an envelope, posted in reverse, from me here to you elsewhere, wherever you are. It’s probably like ham in other ways too, some people would say.

      When I published my first book, The Truth about Babies (Granta, 2002), my wife said she’d only read the next one if I managed to make no mention of vomit, diarrhoea, urine, sperm and other bodily fluids, and I’ve done my best, although she may wish to skip a few pages… The index is designed for those with similar aversions or inclinations.

      When I sent my mum a copy of the baby book she said, ‘That’s nice, dear,’ which is pretty much what she’s said to me since I first brought drawings home from school, and which still seems to me about the right response to anyone claiming to be an artist. These days, reticence is easily underrated. But then so is enthusiasm. When we were growing up my mum and dad provided for us children, they cooked good food for us to eat, they made sure we brushed our teeth and were polite, and didn’t watch too much television, they taught us how to make our own beds, helped us with our homework and pointed out interesting things when we were on long car journeys. Perhaps this last explains the footnotes.

      The rest of the mechanics of the book are obvious, I hope, and require no further admissions or explanation. (Apart, perhaps, from the brief chapter summaries and epigraphs, which seem to me a mere practical courtesy but which I’m aware are currently out of fashion, and