The ideal Christmas present: Jude: Level 1

Hah! It was a cunning trap, all along! For a long, drowsy year I seduce you with poetry, philosophy, art and economics (OK, not many of you are very seduced by the economics...) All is bliss, and  then, when you have been lulled into lowering your guard... I pounce! And in the great tradition of the internet, I try to sell you something! Hah hah hah hah hah hah!

So anyway, Jude: Level 1 is great (look at these reviews!) and if you haven't read it yet you should. I wrote it in my own blood, you know. As Jesus said: Greater love hath no man than to lay down years of his life writing a comic novel in cafés, so that his friends might laugh. (This is slightly misquoted in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, in John 15:13, as the café in which Jesus was speaking was noisy.)

Jude: Level 1 also makes a great Christmas present for certain kinds of weird and twisted friend, and I think you know who I'm talking about. You've got at least five of them. They'll love it, the sick individuals.

If you're in Britain or Ireland, it's in most good bookshops (or they can order it). But, wherever you are, there's the www.amazon.co.uk option. (And thanks Liz, for telling me that amazon.co.uk will take orders from the States. I hadn't been sure. Amazon.com can't sell it yet, for copyright reasons.) Amazon.co.uk will even giftwrap it for you if you like, and include your personal message, and send it straight to your friend's door, wherever they are. In fact, Jude: Level 1 makes an ideal present for a nostalgic, possibly tearful Irish friend far from home. It'll reassure them that they were right to leave, thus saving their Christmas. And possibly their life, damn it. Do it now!