How I awarded an indelible prize to Sean Magee
I was disconcerted to see my old chum Sean Magee, in the Sunday Times review of his addictive DESERT ISLAND DISCS: 70 YEARS OF CASTAWAYS (Bantam Press), introduced as someone who had been "twice honoured by the Bookseller magazine as 'name-dropper of the year'".
What impression of Sean did this outlandish nugget of information leave in readers' minds? If the impression was unfavourable, was it my fault?I should explain. In 2002, Methuen held the launch of Sean's Ascot: The History at Royal Ascot, where he was invited to present a copy of the book to Her Majesty. Of course, he could not resist, during a conversation at the lunch table later, inserting the phrase, "As I was saying to the Queen...". And I could not resist giving him a Horace Bent award as Namedropper of the Year. The following year, I wrote that Sean's achievement was impossible to top, and that therefore he deserved the accolade again, as well as in perpetuity.
Irony, as so many have discovered, rarely survives translation.