Happy 2008

Happy New Year to everyone!

I'm not great on resolutions, but this year, now comfortably into my mid forties, I'm determined to at least keep to a few.

(1) remember not to get completely pissed at public functions when you have to make a speech; certainly do not attempt to alter your speech seconds before going on stage; and if Sir Ben Kingsley is in the audience, do not suggest to the gathered social and political elite of Belfast that he might care to don a ginger wig and play Martin McGuinness in a bio pic.

(2) along with everyone else, get fit. Having torn my cruciate ligament and broken my hand in the same comical football accident I have to get the finger out, get fit and return to the field of dreams (Eddie Irvine's 5-a-side pitch. Not name dropping here - as opposed to above, where I was - he just owns a big complex outside my home town).

(3) stop prevaricating and get started on the one after next novel. Ghost Town comes out in May - it may surprise a few of you, because it's crap. No, I mean, it's different - because I'm tackling an unusual subject and it has taken me a bit out of my comfort zone. Interested to know what you think. But the book after that could, should, may be Mystery Man, which could, should, may be the start of a new series. It's set in a mystery book shop called No Alibis in Belfast - which is of course, a real place - but this will obviously be a highly fictional version of the store where I launch nearly all of my books. If any of you have been to my readings or have read the short story The Case of Mrs Geary's Leather Trousers then you'll know that the book version should guarantee a lot of laughs.