Daren King, and Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads

I'm very pleased to share literary representation (that's Tibor Jones & Associates) with Daren King, whose fiction, from Boxy an Star to Jim Giraffe to the recent Manual, has been delighting and defying classification among readers of taste for most of the last ten years. And I'm fairly pleased to have got my boat-race onto the picture section of Daren's website by way of the shot herewith of myself and the editor whom Daren and I also share, the famous Lee Brackstone of Faber and Faber. The main reason for a smile is that I remember the particular Night In The Pub when the photo was taken - it was the Princess Louise on High Holborn, always a canny boozer but recently remodelled to an even higher standard. And it was, of course, just a night in the pub, not a photo session. The ales will have been Samuel Smith's, since that's what you get in a Samuel Smith's pub. Lee has a look - does he not? - of a man just beginning the evening, one that will surely see him progress from the arm down to the chair itself. As for me, what about the state of that bloody cardigan?