Acknowledgements

To my very dear wife and long-suffering sons: thank you for all your patience and support. I promise I won’t write anything else for a while. Many thanks also to the team at Pearson, especially Paul East and Elie Williams for all their hard work behind the scenes. This book also owes much to the academics, bloggers and journalists who kindly furnished me with so much stimulating material, and also to Drew and Natalie Dee, creators of Married To The Sea. Their genius cartoons made me laugh out loud during a particularly gruelling phase of the writing. Most of all, thank you to my magnificent editor, Rachael Stock, who went way beyond the call of duty and generously offered to edit this book whilst technically on leave. I’m not sure about the wisdom of sawing through the branch you’re sitting on (or even helping someone else do so) but you have selflessly steadied my hand and I’m truly grateful. Finally, I want to acknowledge the contribution of my faithful hound, Lola, who has stayed glued to my side throughout the whole process, even though I suspect her devotion may have had something to do with her ability to persuade me to keep on putting my hand in the biscuit tin and turn a blind eye whenever she snuck up on the sofa in my office. I have only two words to say to her: GET DOWN!

PUBLISHER’S ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Cartoons from the strip, Married To The Sea (marriedtothesea.com).