SHOCKING NEW THREAT TO BOOKS

Please make sure you are sitting down and that medical support is not far away.

You've heard of books being threatened by the internet; you've heard of literature being damaged by cultural dumbing down and obsession with celebrity non-writing; you know that author income is falling in these straitened times. But, fellow-authors, I must warn you of a new and terrifying attack from an unexpected quarter.

Pause for a deep breath.

Yes, it is that bad. And it's starting, I'm ashamed to say, in Scotland. (I may have to disown my adopted country. Adopted, see: I'm not really Scottish, I'll have you know. I don't even have a Celtic fringe. I'll happily take a few bottles of single malt, preferably from Islay, and then leave.)

The shocking news: a Scottish doctor, who is clearly not an author, is proposing a tax on ... chocolate.

In my view, this is the single biggest threat to the future quality of literature since the man from Porlock interrupted Samuel Taylor Coleridge while writing Kubla Khan.

This is nothing but a Tax On Books. It's a short step from such amorality to knocking the feet from under old ladies or removing the brakes from babies' prams.

Writers need chocolate. A writer without chocolate is like a ship without water, a bird without wings. Without it we are but amateurs, struggling in the dark, whistling in the wind. Surely we must see this absurd suggestion as the last straw, the final unacceptable threat to our honourable profession? Rise up, I say, gird up your Lindts, va-voom your Valrhona, gather your Green and Blacks (especially the ones with little bits of orange in them) and go forth and ... er ... eat. You see, this proves it - I haven't had any chocolate this morning and I've totally run out of good words.

I'm not sure if I can write any more at all today after that news with my breakfast. I may have to go shopping instead. First stop, Hotel Chocolat.