Is this a dagger that I see before me . . .

Ok so this is coming in place of the other post I was going to write. I'll come back to that one because it still is one I want to use - and celebrate good news (no no that good news, not yet - but some very nice news just the same)

And first I thought I'd write the good news and then add this and then I thought no, why taint the cheery post with the less than cheery one? So here we are -

Dear Ian Rankin . . .

I'm not really annoyed- or even narked - just disillusioned and well, quite frankly, bored. At the Crime Writers Awards you trotted out that dreary old joke about the only writers likely to plant a dagger in your back are the Romantic Novelists.

Well, it has a slightly amusing irony to it. Or it would have if it wasn't so tired the poor comment probably needs to appear in a wheelchair by now. This is at least the third time in recent memory I've heard this 'witty' comment dragged out - originally (maybe) by Peter Guttrige, then by Lin Anderson in the Edingburgh Times, Andrew Taylor on the One Show and now you. And that's without counting up the number of reported repetitions of it that I've never actually heard myself.And I do have to wonder - I thought writers were supposed to be good with words, not just parrots.

But this is the one that disillusions me. Because I've been an admirer of Ian Rankin, his books, his televsion appearances, his discussion of crime writing, Dr Jeykell and Mr Hyde etc etc for a long time. So I'm sad to hear him repeating the tired old joke that surely must be well past its retirement date by now.

Come to a Romantic Novelists' Conference is all I can say.

Or no - perhaps I should add that recently, when my one of my dear friends Zoe Sharp ( another Crime Writer) came to visit, she set us this puzzle and I got the answer straight away. That was when she told me that usually the only people who get the answer right are supposed to be psychopaths. Oops.

So perhaps that just goes to show that those Crime Writers are right in their opinions of us Romantic Novelists . . . .

Now I'll go and write the cheery post to distract myself from thoughts of daggers. . . .