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Today is a truly moment­ous day for An Unre­li­able Witness.

But enough about me. For­get for a moment that this is my site, all about me. I know it’s dif­fi­cult, but try. Just this once, please. I’m beg­ging and implor­ing you. I know that I am an end­lessly fas­cin­at­ing topic of con­ver­sa­tion, so I prom­ise that you can all go back to talk­ing about me in a few minutes, after you’ve read this entry. But for the next few para­graphs, I crave your indulgence.

Today is a truly moment­ous day (as I pre­vi­ously men­tioned) because an excep­tional friend of mine — you know, a real friend, as opposed to one of the increas­ingly numer­ous ima­gin­ary con­tin­gent I pos­sess — has pub­lished a book. It’s a real book, too; not an ima­gin­ary book. The sort of book that is now avail­able from your local vir­tual and/or bricks and mor­tar book­store, rather than one of those lim­ited edi­tion items that you draw on a piece of card­board when you’re five years old, and give to your mother with the proud boast: “Look mummy, I did make a book! Isn’t I clever?” No, not that kind of book at all.

Sorry, for a moment there I had a flash­back to cer­tain pain­ful child­hood trau­mas. Must stop. Deep breath. “This post is not about me. This post is not about me. This post is not about me. Not about me. No. Just this once, it’s not about me.” Any­way, where was I?

So. Yes. My friend Andre Jordan — here­after and forever to be known as “Andre Jordan of Andre Jordan fame” — has had a book pub­lished. It’s a very good book too. I know this, because I’ve already read it. Yes, aren’t I spe­cial? You may now swoon in my esteemed pres­ence. I got an exclus­ive pre­view from the great man him­self too. You’re hor­rendously jeal­ous now, aren’t you? I flicked through its pages and I laughed, I cried, I smiled, I sighed with recog­ni­tion, I said “Is that a sheep? Or a cloud?”, I giggled, I frowned, I sniffled, I snuffled, I gurgled. The gurg­ling was noth­ing to do with the book, I hasten to add; it’s just that Andre and I had been shar­ing a curry at the time, and it was a bit too strong for my del­ic­ate constitution.

Oh damn. I’m talk­ing about myself again. Back to the mat­ter in hand — namely, Andre and his fab­ulous book.

It’s very good, you know. The book, I mean. Well, it would be, because it’s all about me. Me. Yes. About me. All of it. Every single felt-tipped line. Every single sheep-like cloud. Or cloud-like sheep. Whichever. Yes, yes, I know that if you trap him in a dark corner, shine a torch in his eyes, tie him up and inter­rog­ate him until he screams for mercy (not that I’ve done this; not much, any­way), he’ll try and deny it, but he and I both knew the truth. There was an attempt a few months back to title the book If You’re An Unre­li­able Wit­ness And You Know It, but his pub­lish­ers blocked it. Some­thing about the title being too long to fit on the rather small and pocket-sized cover. Yes, a likely story.

So the little green book ended up being called If You’re Happy And You Know It. It’s out now. Today, in fact. Thursday 1 Novem­ber, 2007: a truly moment­ous day that will go down in the annals of his­tory. On its cover, it fea­tures a felt-tip drawn man with a sad face appar­ently shoot­ing him­self in the head. Aw, bless. That makes it the sort of gift you des­per­ately want to give your del­ic­ate grand­mother for Christ­mas, doesn’t it? Indeed, Andre’s little book is of just the right size — and cer­tainly just the right sub­ject mat­ter — to make it the per­fect stock­ing filler for the forth­com­ing fest­ive sea­son. So, ladies, be sure to fill your stock­ings with Andre Jordan this Christ­mas. And gen­tle­men too, of course, if you’re into wear­ing stockings.

In the mean­time, I had been plan­ning to assist the Jord­anesque pub­li­city machine by run­ning a com­pet­i­tion on this site in which I would give away the five cop­ies of Andre’s little book that I ordered from Amazon, but the infam­ous doodler — with a dis­tinctly mean gleam in his eye — advised me that I would be tak­ing liber­ties (and prob­ably decreas­ing the pocket-sized volume’s value) if I signed the inside cover myself. I say, how­ever, that he’s a spoilsport. Ima­gine how exclus­ive those books would be in the future! They would be collector’s items! If You’re Happy And You Know It, as signed by the legendary An Unre­li­able Wit­ness! J.K. Rowl­ing can, frankly, kiss my arse. I’ve had that Ian McE­wan on the phone this morn­ing want­ing me to sign his latest book for him. So there, Mis­ter Jordan.

Sorry, I’m doing it again, aren’t I? Not about me, not about me, not about me, not about me. And breathe. And relax.

So what are you wait­ing for? You can find out more about Andre Jordan’s debut pub­lic­a­tion at his new web­site, help­fully called andre jordan dot co dot you kay, or you can just go straight to Amazon and ask them to for­ward, post haste, a copy of that ter­rific book of doodles all about An Unre­li­able Wit­ness. Tell them I sent you.

(Oh bug­ger. Did it again.)

Lastly, it only falls to me to say that the long-held rumour about the humble web­site, blog or web­log you see before you is, in fact, com­pletely true. Everything I write here really is all about Andre Jordan of Andre Jordan fame. Except when it’s all about me. Which is always.

P.S. I am due to receive a sub­stan­tial com­mis­sion for each and every book sold as a res­ult of this entry, so at least two of you ungrate­ful sods bloody well bet­ter go and buy it because of what I’ve writ­ten here, or else I’ll kill myself. That is not an idle threat.