At last!

Yes, it is astonishing, but here it is at last, in my hand. A couple of boxes with 15 advance copies arrived at the Trinity College porters lodge this morning, just in time for me to catch the plane back to New Zealand tomorrow for a festival of events, one of which is the New Zealand book launch!

I have to admit, for all my travails with OUP, the finished product is a delight, with the diagrams sharper than I had imagined and with the feel of the book, very nice indeed. I had the idea of this book in my mind since about 2000, and started work in earnest in 2008. It kept me company through some dark moments, the writing taking my mind off the lethargy and nausea of chemotherapy.

I've had a nice week, capped off by finally managing to Skype with Miang in Arusha, Tanzania. Her electricity comes on for just a brief hour or so during the day, which is when she charges her laptop. She Skyped me in the dark, illuminating her face with a flashlight. She is doing great things with her food technology project. More on that later.

Last night, after taking Chris to dinner at High Table, I went back to Hills Road to sleep. I was wakened by James at 6-30 am. He wanted to play airports. This is a game where I send instructions from the control tower (Sierra Charlie Alpha 732, this is Stansted Control, you are cleared for takeoff), and which has all sorts of amusing variants, especially when he lands at Carcassonne and I send very strange instructions in a sort of faux-French accent directing him to "runway du Sud, merci beaucoup", etc. After playing airports I read Thomas's favourite book to him. It has a collection of animals and I make all the animal noises. The butterfly is a challenge, but I must say he particularly likes my chicken squawk and tries to imitate me amidst giggles.

Speaking of books I must tell you my book story. I was walking through town on my way to Heffers (the quality bookstore in Cambridge), when I was accosted by a young Red Cross collector. She asked me "how is your day?", "do you have the day off?", "where are you going?" Never being one to refuse conversation with a nice young woman, I replied "I'm great; no, this is what I do, read, write and walk about in town; and I'm off to Heffers bookshop". "What will you buy?" she asked, to which I replied, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, by Adam Smith. "Oh, she said-do you like his stuff?" "Why yes", I said. "I love his books, Can't get enough of them!".

Well, having ascertained that she had no collection bucket and that the pitch was a ploy to get me to go to their website and donate, I headed on my way to Heffers, walking straight up to the girl at the upstairs information desk. "Do you have Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments?", I asked. She obviously had trouble with my accent. "Dan Smith did you say? Thinking a model sensitive?". I spelled it out, slowly. She searched the computer and proclaimed. "No, we don't have that." Probing further I said "well, what about Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations." which I knew they must have. "Weather station did you say?". I was starting to find this young woman irritating, much preferring conversations with the Red Cross girl. Despairing I walked down the stairs to the vast basement area of the shop where there are endless shelves. I searched and rummaged helplessly through Economics, History, Philosophy until I turned a corner and saw a young man behind another information desk. I posed my question. He got up without a word, walked quickly and purposefully via several aisles going straight to a shelf near the floor, whence he retrieved, "tout de suite", two editions of Moral Sentiments, inviting me to exercise my preference.

"You cannot imagine how impressed I am", I said. He vaguely smiled, shrugged, and went back to his desk. I suspect that this man knew the exact location of every volume of every one of the hundreds of thousand of books in the store. Of course I went triumphantly to the girl in the upper floor information desk, waved my book under her nose and said, with a smile and a wink, "you need to fix your computer system." She feigned concern, looked at the book, rechecked her system and apologised. I am sure she thought that any sensible person would much prefer to read Thinking a model sensitive. What are moral sentiments anyway and what sort of peculiar man would want to know about them? Chinese premier Wen Jiabao apparently. He never travels anywhere without taking his copy to read.

So, I head off tomorrow to New Zealand, returning Thursday night. I have four medical appointments, one public lecture, one book launch, two TV interviews, two radio interviews, one short address to the Wellington City Council, and some meetings at Magritek, in the lab and in the university. The lecture is entitled A prosperous 21st Century New Zealand: educating for the new Tiger economy. Yes, I know it's mad, but this is Rugby World Cup time. The nation will be mad. All this should mostly be fun, though the final medical appointment with my oncologist, a few hours before I board to come back to the UK, may be less fun, depending on how gloomy he chooses to be. Ah well, that's what oncologists are. Gloomy.