It's Christmas !!

Greetings fellow Blogospherenauts (if there is such a thing) , Some of you may be wondering why there has been no updates to this hallowed blog since November 27th. Well, if truth be told, there have been no updates on the Wanderingscribe blog since that date and as I exist only to provide counterbalance to her lies and deception, then there has been nothing to report. Apologies to the 325 of you that have logged on diligently (yes, I have stats enabled) since that date to see more of her shenanigans and outright lies shot down in flames but the simple truth is that her blog appears to have served its purpose and got her the book deal she was hankering after all along, hence few updates. I've no doubt that there will be more entries along the lines of "OMG what a whirl of press junkets and book signings, my life is all topsy turvey at the moment" bollox that will appear once she starts to fulfill her contractual obligations to advertise her book but in the meantime I'd like to extend a personal thanks to the 186,000 of you who have visited my site since its inception on 30th May 2006. Those figures are verifiable (unlike some we can mention) and if you want proof then just drop me an email. Try asking for that from "Anya Peters". Cynical? Moi? I leave with with one more image until the new year and I wish all my readers a Merry Xmas and a prosperous and peaceful New Year .....

Genuine homeless peple cut down the trees in "The Laneway" so that they can't be used as marketing pawns for some cynical would be author ........

Wanderingscribe Abridged (3)

As a public service to those of you who don't have the stomach (or the sheer mental fortitude) to read all the posts on Anya's site, I present the latest edition of Wanderingscribe Abridged. To get fully up to date, you may wish to peruse Episode 1 & Episode 2 of this exciting tale of ummm... nothingness which will bring you smack bang up to date with Anya Peters and her quest for a book deal. July 03 - Reminisce about when I was homeless and it was hot. July 17 - Car broke down August 17 - Waffle August 26 - Been on holiday to Ireland September - No posts October 21 - Reminisce about when I was homeless and I slept in a car. November 21 - Finished the book. November 27 - Reminisce about when I was homeless and hungry. There ya go folks, 5 months wrapped up in 7 posts. Didn't take long did it !! Although I am sensing a recurrring theme about how she harps on about being homeless even though she has been living in a bedsit for 6 months now. This writing larks a piece of piss! I reckon anybody with rudimentary writing skills could knock out a book these days ........ Oh look, someone has!!

Confession Time

At last there's hope for Anya. Her latest post (which incidentally goes waaaaaaaaaaaay over the top in terms of dribble quotient) marks a turn for the better as she finally confesses that she has lost her mind. ".... letting the waves carry my mind off. Because, yesterday, it was very good to walk on without it for a bit..." Way to go Anya. You have to realise there's a problem before you can get help!! Later on there's even more revelations that she once found some magic mushrooms and asked a café to cook them but, after they turfed the crazy homeless lady out onto the streets, she walked along with "my saliva dripping in lemony butter". There's a pretty mental image to conjure up. Do people make a habit of asking food establishments to cook something they found lying on the ground? Perhaps this is a ploy to "big up" the mental illness aspect that she must surely be going to use to promote the forthcoming book. Here's a little tip. Save your energy love. The evidence is already well stacked up in your favour !

Anya in her jutting out Kitchen. Did someone say "Eh ehh ehhhhh...."

He's got my publicity !!

Poor old Anya must be a bit peeved at the news that the bloke who inspired her to create a blog to get a book deal has only gone and got himself some more publicity from the BBC. Hugh Sawyer has made the news because he's upping sticks (probably literally) and becoming homeless in Ecuador. (What a grand life those homeless folks live, eh readers !) Avid readers of the turgid tale of Anya will recall that she used his blog to advertise her own, even going so far as to feign surprise that she was mentioned by the New York Times and handily providing a link for anyone who wanted to see her blog. (Don't forget it was written for herself though and was absolutely in no way a self promotional tool!!). Quite how she could be surprised when she obviously gave the interview in the first place isn't explored though. Probably a result of that mental illness that she'll be harping on about in the book. I quite liked the quote by the Beeb about Hugh Sawyer that "He has tried to make his living as authentic as possible." Mmmm..... Me too. I'm sick of meeting people who only pretend to live.

It is done

But who really cares? How many months is it now with no real news? How many months of self indulgent clap trap? Even the most ardent of fans must be reading Anya's blog and thinking "There's no news here!" Mind you, there is no story now. Not until the publicity train hoves into view............

Remember

In Flanders field the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.

Reaching out for help ....

As the latest site to fall victim to the con job being perpetrated by Anya Peters, World Vision includes a couple of recorded interviews ( a 2 minute "taster" and an in depth one of 5 minutes) where our heroine of the Laneways once again peddles the bullshit that has made her a celebrity in her own mind. I wasn't really sure if it was indeed our very own Laneway loser as the presenter keeps referring to her as "Onya" but how many homeless people can there be living in their cars in London? Actually, probably loads if it's a proven method to get a book deal. So.... cue the interview and straight away, the presenter makes a point that "Onya" is calling from a London payphone (no doubt to highlight the "pity me" aspect). Hang on a mo ..... Surely those tight wads at Harper Collins would have let her use the phone for 5 minutes. Especially as this would count as promotional work !! Mind you, it wouldn't have quite the same ring to it. "Here's "Onya" ringing from her publishers office about her forthcoming book .........." The presenter makes all the right cooing noises and feeds "Onya" her cues and our little trooper starts tugging at our heart strings with how she read about this person who had a blog (no mention that he got a book deal through it which "Onya" has admitted made her feel jealous) and how she then used her blog as a "cry for help". Hold The Phone !! I may be mistaken but weren't many offers of help made? (You can check 'em out yourself by trawling through the older comments on her site before they too are deleted (to help the story flow better)) Contact points for charities. Address's. Personal offers of help. On and on they flowed. But all were rejected by "Onya". Until that glorious day when the offer of help from a literary agent was made. Hallelujah !! That was more like it ! That's what she was waiting for. Sadly, the presenter doesn't go into this but instead asks "Onya" if she could perhaps read a passage from her blog. Don't be silly love. This poor ex-homeless woman is calling in from a payphone. Do you think she would have a printed copy of her blog to hand? Actually she does! Sacré Bleu !! Either that, or a laptop with wifi access so she can instantly call up her site. So off "Onya" goes, enthralling the listeners with an excerpt from February (one of the earliest entries). Now she might be reading from her soon to be published manuscript as the quote doesn't exactly match up with what appears on the blog. Was she quoting from memory? Could be as there have only been 69 posts in total since that first one in February. We then learn that Harper Collins asked her to write about her experiences. Strangely "Onya" forgets to mention the actual version which is that her new found agent apparently whipped up interest in her experiences before supposedly getting a bidding war going for the story which Harper Collins won. Umm.. your experiences as a homeless bum? Funny that, because the book that they are touting doesn't seems to concentrate on the homeless aspect too much but instead on how she "overcame her traumatic childhood and adult homelessness to find a place she could call home". So that would be a London Bedsit, would it? The drivel continues ..........

All my own work. Or is it …….

The claims by Wanderingscribe that her writing skills alone won the book deal have come under scrutiny recently with two opposing statements. One by Wanderingscribe herself that she’s "scribbling away furiously" and the other by her ghost writer about his Modus Operandii of interviewing the named author and then writing the book himself. Others have picked up on this latest in a series of anomalies and even questioned the (alleged) author herself via emails. Surprisingly she has deigned to answer one or two with the explanation that she and she alone is creating the masterpiece with Andrew Crofts merely "on standby" in case he is called upon to make any minor adjustments nearer to publishing time. Call me cynical if you like (it would make a change from Shirley) but would a Publishing House risk leaving it to the last minute before asking their ghost writer to "hone" the writings of a first timer with no experience of writing for a mass market? Especially as they have publicly stated that the book is being "written with Andrew Crofts" already. Another clue would be in the classification that Harper Collins are assigning to the the book (although even they aren't sure how to define the hotchpotch). Category: Biography and autobiography Come come HC, I realise that writing skills or a command of the English language aren't really a pre-requisite for your authors but even you must know the difference between a biography and an autobiography. Perhaps Anya is also confused over those big words so I'll help the poor soul out by presenting this "Print, Cut out and Keep" guide. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Bi·og·ra·phy: An account of a person's life written, composed, or produced by another (that would be the bit where Andrew Crofts produces it) Au·to·bi·og·ra·phy: The biography of a person written by that person. (that would be without Andrew Crofts) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Noblesse Oblige

Art imitates Life

Acknowledgements to Private Eye

How many posts?

To aid newcomers to the phenomenon known as Anya Peters, I was going to do another "Anya Peters Abridged" post in which I provide just bullet points of previous posts by Anya. Although this would undoubtedly prove an invaluable resource and save new readers from having to trudge through the endless tedium of her blog, thereby allowing them to get "up to speed", I was struck by a question. Just how many posts has she made in her quest to get that book deal? Hmmmmmm.............. Those of you with as much time on their hands as I have could pop over to her blog and do a bit of research but here's a helpful summary of all daily articles since she started back in February 2006.

February - 17

March - 19

April - 15

May - 10

June - 3

July - 2

August - 2

September - 0

October - 1

Total Daily Posts = 69

Another interesting fact is that Anya admitted that she secured her agent and book deal in the middle of May. Sacré Bleu !! I've just noticed that since she got the book deal, she has made a grand total of 8 posts. That's 8 posts in 5 months. Oh well, I guess she's been busy writing that book. Hang on. It's being Ghost written for her !?!

Oh well, I guess the time must have been taken up with trips to see the family. Then there'll be all those meetings to arrange her book tour and personal appearances. Funny how this isn't even mentioned in her latest posts. Just vague reminisces about when she was homeless.

Of course, that was 6 months ago but the blog still has its uses.

After all, HC have already stated their intention to use her blog as a marketing tool.

I'm sure they'll be advising her get her finger out and to start posting some more soon.

Unless she's going to get a ghost writer in for that as well .......

A chance to verify Anyas Tale?

In what must be a shocking blow for Harper Collins (HC), Wikipedia have deleted the entry for Wanderingscribe from their site. Why should it concern HC? Well, as you will be aware, the purpose of Wikipedia is to act as a repository for truthful facts. A notice posted on Wikipedia (dated 23rd September) stated that Lawyers of Harper Collins had been in touch regarding some of the so called facts and that further additions to the page were temporarily banned whilst legal teams looked at it. Quite what they were looking at was never disclosed. Within a day or two, the ban was lifted and the Anya Sicko-fants continued to alter the data and, as previously seen on the Anya Peters blog comments section, attempted to manipulate the facts to bolster the fanciful tale being woven by the author. On 19th October, Wikipedia posted a notice at the top of the post regarding the Wanderingscribe blog ands subsequent Wikipedia entry and stated that "it looks like an attempt by a publisher to whip up controversy about a book in order to generate sales." Although stating that there would be a 5 day period of grace allowed to prove the claims presented by the author using the pseudonym of Anya Peters (either directly or via HC), the page was deleted less than 48 hours later. Wikipedias rules state that "content which fails inclusion criteria for Wikipedia, is incapable of verification with reputable sources, .... is usually deleted." One can only imagine that the combined might of Harper Collins legal team (who would surely count as a reputable source) were unable to provide any substantiated proof about their claims regarding Anya Peters (which you would have thought would be easy to prove). Will this stop the marketing process for the book that has already swung into action? Doubtful, however, you can be pretty sure that any mention of the deleted Wanderingscribe entry on Wikipedia will be omited when HC are trying to drum up interest. Unless of course folks stumble on this humble little blog ...... You can find a copy of the Wikipedia entry before the Anya Sicko-fants tried yet another cover up, here.

Who ya gonna call? GHOST-WRITER !!

As Anya Peters (and that's not her real name, folks) forthcoming book has been ghost written by Andrew Crofts, Anya's Sicko-Fants might be interested in who this dude is.

After all, surely he must be sympathetic to homeless folks to have taken on the assignment. A quick sneaky peeky at his website indicates that he does indeed have "form". Curiously though, I couldn't see much evidence of his work with homeless folks. Tellingly he does confess that it does not take him that long to write someone's book. for them. "We sit down with a tape recorder and I try and get twenty to 30 hours of information on tape. Then..... I have the book" So just what is Anya doing these days? What is it that's keeping her from updating her blog seeing as how Andrew must have all the info he needs by now? Perhaps lots of meetings with her publishers and agent about her forthcoming book tour. Maybe discussions about how to maximise publicity by accentuating her blog? Who knows.... Meanwhile Poor Andrew must be slaving away over Anya's book. I guess it will be a change for him after ghost writing for so many other folks. A chance to put the perspective of a homeless person. After all, Harper Collins will be using (is that the right word?) "numerous homeless charities and the Big Issue magazine to promote, market and distribute the book". And all to support Anya in the manner to which she has become accustomed to..... (oh go on then, we'll throw a few bob at the homeless folks if you insist). But what of poor Andrew, slaving away to bring us the story of a poor Anya Peters as she struggled to come to terms with homelessness. After all, it was homelessness that was the reason for creating the Anya Peters blog in the first place, remember?

So as Andrew slaves away, adding his own personal spin on the story of homelessness, lets take a quick stroll down (Andrew's') memory lane about some of the books he has ghostwritten in the past.....

For imstance, there was The Little Prisoner. This is the true story of a girl who was dominated, bullied and sexually abused by her stepfather..... Then there was Please, Daddy, No. The tragic story of an abused boy ...... Let's not foget The Kid. This moving story of an abused boy,........ Hmmm..... Is it just me or can anyone see a formula appearing here .......... Of course, that fact that there was no mention of abuse on Anyas' blog till she had the book deal and the ghostwriter was commissioned must be purely coincidental. Makes you think though .......... (Obviously this last sentence does not apply to Anya Sicko-fants ).

Abandoned. The true story of an author with poor writing skills.

News reaches me via the grapevine that Anya's writing skills so impressed Harper Collins that they decided to get someone else to write her book with her. Sacré Bleu !! What about our heroines valiant struggle to be recognised as a bona fidé author? What about her half finished novel about romance in the Scottish highlands? A post on the Harper Colins site reveals how the book is to be ghostwritten by Andrew Crofts "the ghostwriter who crafted three No. 1 bestselling memoirs, including 'Just a Boy' and 'Little Prisoner". Hmm.. Could it be that the flowery clap trap that Anya has been posting on her blog is considered not good enough to publish? Evidently so as the services of another writer have been called upon to ensure that the book isn't filled with the dribble that we have had to endure so far. But how will the Anya Sicko-fants take to this new improved style of writing which involves a real life author pointing out that "Mills and Boon styley prose" belongs firmly in the last milennium? Only time will tell but Harper Collins are determined to claw back their advance fee (rumoured to be in excess of £20,000) and are "bigging up" the fact that Anya's blog was nominated for a media award run by the New Statesman magazine. Spookily they fail to mention tha it was nominated by one of Anya's loyal Sicko-fants or that t it didn't even make the short list. Never mind. Let's not let the facts get in the way of a good marketing campaign, eh! The proposed advertising campaign aims also state that "Coverage will include interviews, features, reviews in key woman’s and lifestyle media. Strong strong serial sale expected." Looks like a comment left in response to a post on this blog that it "Sounds like a 10 part "Bella" special to me." is spookily accurate. At least they are going to be using Anya's blog as a marketing tool to promote the book (I was under the impression that was the raison d’être from the outset!) I wonder if she'll be kind enough to add a link to this humble blog to present a balanced view. Hmmm.. there's more chance of parking for free in a London hospital car park ....... We are also informed that the name "Anya Peters" is a pseudonym. Blimey! So she was lying to the New York Times as well as the BBC. Who would have thought it ...... Image © Harper Collins Ltd

Delete ! Delete ! Delete !

In what must come as startling news to the Worlds favourite (un)homeless author, there are plans afoot to delete the Wanderingscribe entry on Wikipedia. As most readers will be aware, Wikipedia is the 21st Centurys equivalent of a universal encyclopaedia. One that can be counted on as a source of irrefutable reference. It seems that the constant edits by the Wanderingscribe sicko-fants to cover and obfuscate the facts supposedly reported on Anya Peters blog have come to the attention of the admins over at Wikipedia who have decreed that the whole stunt is just that. A stunt by the publishing house to drum up publicity for a book. Accordingly they have set a 5 day deadline for anybody to prove that the whole sorry tale is indeed true. After that, the entry will be deleted. Will Anya emerge from her dingey bedsit to address the numerous anomolies that occur in her blog and thus seal the Wikipedia entry as fact? Or will she just continue to waffle about arty farty romanticised fictional accounts of a non existant person on her blog and have the ignomy of being declared by an iconic site of the internet as a fraud? Some may say (to quote an old Irish saying) that it's time to "piss or get off the pot ......" Did she think she could fool all of the people all of the time?

The plot thickens

Do you think that I should go into the fortune telling business? I only ask as the first synopsis of Anya's book reveals that, Lo and behold, she was abused as a child. Strange that her blog never mentioned it. Not once. Perhaps my post of August 10th (I remember now ....) was a foretelling of things to come. Or things that had passed. Was I a fly on the wall of a certain café? Or perhaps my cynicism of the whole "Homeless persons blog" is proving to be well founded. Here's a snippet: Born illegitimately to Irish lovers, Anya was given away by her real mother and brought up in England by her loving aunt. However, her childhood with her new family was far from happy - verbally and sexually abused for years, Anya finally cracked and shopped her violent uncle, resulting in his imprisonment. After his imprisonment and a few months before her twelfth birthday, Anya lost her whole family overnight. Blimey O'Reilly!! Did it really happen like that? Of course, those of a cynical nature (such as I) may hypothesise that Anya has been "cherry picking" from the selection of misery memoirs already on the market. After all, in this manufactured world we live in, it makes sense to see what's proving the hook for the book buying public and to whack a dollop of that into your own offering. In my post of September 23rd (More Misery Memoir Fakes...) I pointed out that in a faked blog, the author had been abused as a child in Ireland and had a baby which was given away. I even suggested that Anya might have to up the stakes in her own book if she was to compete. Leap forward a few short weeks and what is now revealed? We now find claims that Anya was an illegitimate child of an Irish couple who was given away as a baby as well as abused as a child !! Is it just me, or is a pattern developing here? I reckon I should get at least a credit in her book as a co-writer. You can't tell me that I don't have a regular reader in a certain jutting out kitchen somewhere in the exact middle of England.

Time passes .......

As the last post by Wanderingscribe was on 26th August (7 weeks and counting), one can only imagine where she has jetted off to this time.

Could it be "A Caribbean Cruise"? A jaunt over to the USA to catch up with her dear mother to inform her that her little girl finally got the book deal she's been hankering after all along? Or has Harper Collins finally got wise and clawed back what's left of the advance fee, thereby forcing Anya to give up her bedsit in London? Maybe the Hospital Car Park where she spent so many weeks and months parking "for free" have been reviewing their security camera footage and, now that Anya is of "fixed abode", have sent a backdated bill for the parking, thereby wiping out the remains of her book advance fee. It's all rather mysterious, wouldn't you agree?

Or perhaps the bottom has fallen out of the misery memoir market and Anya is no longer considered worthy of the attention she so desperately sought.

After all, the "Home Page" for Anya at Harper Collins hasn't been updated. Ever.

It even states that the title hasn't been decided (maybe someove over at Amazon could let 'em know).

Hmmmmm...............

Yet another fake book - Is there no end to them?

The increasingly populated world of faked books is getting even more crowded with the latest revelation that one Rohan Kriwaczek managed to fool the publishing house Overlook into buying the rights to a book he'd wrote about The Guild of Funerary Violinists , a supposedly ancient secret order going back over 400 years. The publishing house lapped it up and his book is currently in print. However, common sense dictates that any organisation existing for over 400 years would leave some traces behind (even a "secret" one). That very same common sense (which appears to be getting less common by the week) would also tell you that if you raise your head above the parapet, someone is going to take a few pot shots. So it came to pass that some folks looked into the supposed existence of The Guild of Funerary Violinists. And found that they didn't exist. Sacré Bleú !! Could it be that yet another publishing house has been fooled by a fake author? Unsurprisingly, the answer is yet again, Yes. Don't these people do any research for themselves?. Just a quick visit to his website to check out his pics would be enough to let you form an opinion that you might be inclined to throw a few bob into his hat as you pass him on the street playing his violin but handing over a cheque for thousands of pounds would be a different matter. Articles have been appearing (including ones by Grumpy Old Bookman, The Daily Mail and other blogs) highlighting the fraud but the publishing house themselves have all but accepted that the book is a fake and are steaming ahead with the publication and distribution anyway. This could prove to be a bit of a double edged sword for Wanderingscribe (who is presumably still beavering away with her own work of fiction in her jutting out kitchen). On the one hand there seems to be an air of almost resignation from publishing houses that a percentage of supposedly real life books are going to be faked and so why bother checking the facts (if it sells then both they and the author get their hands on your cash anyway). On the other hand, it is encouraging folks (not related to the publishing houses) to examine the actual facts behind allegedly factual books in an effort to either confirm or deny the stories presented as truths. So when/if Abandoned ever does hit the book stores then there will be others of an inquisitive nature who will be delving into Anya Peter’s background a little more closely than Harper Collins did before throwing loads of Wonga at her for her dreary tale of one person’s failure to get by in this world we live in. Will she be getting her facts straight before then? Well, if her present track record is anything to go by then it's highly unlikely. Perhaps she'll be reporting it all from her jutting out kitchen which is situated in London, the exact middle of England.

More Misery Memoirs Fakes ......

Looks like Anya may have to spice up her work of fiction about her supposedly cruel and heartless upbringing as more wannabe authors are crawling out of the woodwork to add to the bucketloads of misery memoirs that are the current flavour of the month in literary circles. Mainstream Publishing published Kathy's Story, a supposed biographical account by Kathy O'Beirne of her terrible upbringing where she allegedly;

• Had her hand put in the crack of a door while her father pressed against it until the pain made her pass out
• Had her hand held in a pan of hot grease as a child
• Was beaten by her father with a belt until the wounds turned septic
• Was raped in a Convent when 14
• Had a baby as a result of the rape which was stolen away by the nuns in the convent

Heart tugging stuff. Except a few people have said it's all a load of bollocks. People such as her 5 bothers and sisters who have claimed the book is a "hoax publication'. People like the Nuns who run the Convent who have met with Kathy prior to the publication of her book and are now considering suing over the allegations. At a press conference held by the family, they refuted yet another claim by Kathy that she was adopted by producing her birth certificate. This also laid to rest claims that Kathy was 45 when her birth certificate showed her to be 50. And yet 350,000 copies of the book have been sold (no doubt earning a pretty penny for the author). Looks like Anya will have to "up the stakes" as she is penning her own version of dark and lurid tales of her childhood, if she expects to compete in this murky world of fiction. Perhaps she was raped by the Pope who flew into her window on a flying saucer........ A simple tale of "lost my job, lived in a car for a bit, got a book deal" just won't cut it in todays demanding market.

Geography

"...to talk about this book and sit with him in Yeat’s tower, in almost the exact middle of Ireland" So waffles our (non) homeless heroine in her last post of August (with yet another gap of at least a month before anything more). One of my loyal readers happened to mention in my comments section that Yeats Tower wasn't in the centre of Ireland. Surely, as Anya stated such affinity with the Emerald Isle, she couldn't be so wrong. After all, could it have been mentioned for the purposes of literary prose and to make the story more appealing (much like the lie about being homeless)? So I popped onto the AA route planner for Ireland and typed in the lcation of Yeats Tower and the location of the exact centre of Ireland which (as everybody knows) is Tullamore. Blimey !! 73 miles apart. Mind you, the width of Ireland at its widest point is 170 miles so that would make Anyas' calculation out by about about a third of the entire country. Hmmmm.. I guess geography wasn't a strong point in her schooling. Let's hope she doesn't just make stuff up in her book for dramatic effect, like she does in her blog, eh readers !!

Wherefore art the Con Artist now ......

With yet another extended absence from her blog, the Anya-sickofants must be wondering where she's got to now.

• Perhaps another International jaunt to introduce the readers to yet more characters who will appear in her book.....
• Or maybe she's just nipped off to knock up a quick book of poetry with her dad...

Awwww.. I can picture her next blog entry now. "And as the sun sank slowly beneath the horizon like a great big sinky thing on fire in the sky, I lay my head on daddies lap in the appley green orchard full of green appley apples that reminded me of small round fruits hanging from trees. As Daddy quoted Keats and Shelley to me, I was reminded of happier times in my past when my nannies would tuck me up in my four poster bed and recite Byron and Chaucer to me as I snuggled beneath the freezing sheets, wrapped only in some towels and an ermine coat my mother had given me for my fourth birthday. If only I had been aware of the terrible heart breaky events that I would experience in the future, it would have taken the shine off my forthcoming trip to that Swiss finishing school...."