Not that I blame any literary gathering for not inviting me – I feel the same as Groucho Marx when he famously quipped, ‘I wouldn’t want to go to a festival where Sean Condon was a guest.’ Festivals don’t invite me because I’m a highly dangerous, wildly unpredictable presence: when I’m in a room full of bad fashion, urn coffee and hushed conversation, anything can hap­pen. Festival committees know that and they rightly fear it. Other writers fear me as well, especially older ones and children’s authors. They fear me because I’m not afraid to say what, if anything, is on my mind. I once told Norman Mailer that his necktie offended not just me, but all womankind (I was wearing a dress) and that if he wished to be taken seriously ever again he needed to do something about his hair. I made Dr Seuss cry when I publicly questioned his medical credentials; after I asked him where on the human body the patella was located he replied, ‘Any fella with a patella would certainly use it to eat Nutella.’ (Sure, it’s whimsical and it rhymes, but it’s still wrong.) I caused a mass walkout and near-riot a few years ago when I insisted that my co-panellist Zadie Smith refer to me as ‘Zean’. When I do readings from my books, I like to enlist members of the audience to assist me with certain passages, and if these happen to be erotic passages, so much the better; it’s more fun than listening to someone like Frances Mayes drone about the pleasures of Tuscan olive oil and what a hardship it is being wealthy.
So I am considering giving up writing books and the attendant financial, intellectual and emotional strains. I’m thinking about opening a small bar, possibly Spanish-themed, specialising in sherry. No tapas. And if I do, there’s one thing you can be sure of – everyone is invited.
When I say ‘everyone’ I am, of course, lying. What I actually mean is ‘certain people’. A new bar’s reputation and success is made or broken by the calibre of its patrons, so obviously I can’t just have any chucklehead wander in off the street and expect to get served. I will probably be turning away myself occasionally, just for old time’s sake. And I can’t wait to see the look on my face.