I’ve always been a bit of a letter writer and have had periods of being a bit of a radio phone-in caller (=when I wasn’t getting any attention from girls at school), so I’m rather pleased to have had a letter published in the London Review of Books, even if they did chop in half.

I re-read some of my first letters from my schooldays, and they’re scarily intense. I remind myself far too much of Adrian Mole. I don’t consider myself, Mole-like, to be an intellectual by dint of sharing the same letters page as Slavoj Zizek and Alex Callinicos, but I am a bit chuffed by it all the same.

I’ve now had letters published in The Grauniad, the New Statesman, Tribune, and completing the set, The Sun.

I sent a letter to the Observer regarding a piece Claire Rayner wrote, but they didn’t publish it. But Claire did take the trouble to write back to me, which was nice.