My boss provided the introduction. He asked me whether I'd read any of Saki's short stories after he’d read a very short story of mine about a talking ostrich called Belinda who lays garlic dips. It was one of those crazy little dream-stories I've always really liked writing. I wrote it with craziness and surrealism in mind. I wanted to be a bit weird for weird’s sake. Weird doesn’t take itself too seriously and this leads to a sense of freedom. This gives them a bit more snap, crackle and pop than if I was writing something a bit more serious. What I’ve learnt over the course of this year is that people like weird. Or at least the sort of people I like like weird. When I'd showed my boss that story, I was worried that he’d be a little bamboozled by it. But regular readers don’t get bamboozled easily and my boss is a regular reader. What actually happened was that he found it quite normal – normal within the construction of this dream-story. And everyone dr