Shameless

From the media diary in yesterday's Observer

When in Gnome...

The Christmas issue of Private Eye contains its Books of the Year feature, which aims to shame authors and critics who should have declared an interest when endorsing books by colleagues or friends. But an early candidate for next year may have emerged. Early pressings of a debut novel to be published this spring by Eye hack Adam Macqueen, Topped of the Pops, carried a front-cover verdict: 'Terrific... A great satire on modern celebrity and a corking book.' The critic? None other than Eye deputy editor Francis Wheen.

Bang to rights, of course. And well done to whichever hack managed to get hold of one of the couple of dozen self-published copies that are knocking around amongst my family and friends (mum, we've talked about you selling stories about me before, haven't we...)



As you can clearly see, his opinion is oddly absent from the edition which will be published by Friday Books in May at the competitive price of £7.99.

What do you mean, done it again?