Love Sunshine

Announcing the next meeting of the Mighall-low club

On Saturday I'll be talking about Sunshine at the Way With Words festival at Dartington in Devon. I'm an old hand at these now, and I'll be doing my song and dance - an illustrated history of sun-worship this time (if the technology works; blind panic staring at the audience and improvising with shadow puppets if it doesn't). And then afterwards sitting hopefully behind a pile of books as they form an orderly queue for me to sign their precious copies. If it goes anything like all the other festivals, the very first people to excitedly present their pages for my scrawl will be long lost relatives. I kid you not, it's happened everytime so far. So this time I'm ready, and have decided on a new marketing plan that more effectively targets the core demographic for my product - people who share my surname. I didn't realise there were so many Mighalls (pronounced 'Mile') out there, but, as I've discovered, a sufficient number are of the book-reading, festival-going type, so they are worth targetting directly.

So , in advance, and to the Devon chapter of the from-this-moment-formed Mighall Low Club, get your tickets now, and see you on Saturday. They'll be lurking by the signing table, bright eyed and expectant, as they reveal their special secret and our unique bond. I'll daub some tosh about to 'auntie Angela, long-lost relative', and wonder if they'll ever read it. The book, that is. A doubt does occasionally trouble me about a vainglorious desire to be read and loved and, more importantly, purchased, for disinterested rather than probably spurious quasi-genealogical reasons. But it is but momentary. Whatever it takes. Once my official tour is over I will systematically go through the telephone books of all major cities, cold call all the Mighalls and ask them if they are interested in a book about sunshine by someone who bears their surname. Based on results so far, I'll be laughing. Mighall 'Low?'. Well, it is rather, but a man's gotta live.