There’s Alice (who remembers his birthday), Simon (who doesn’t), Martina (the one-night stand), Kate (the previous tenant of his rented Archway fleapit) and of course Aggi - the inimitable Aggi. People need to be protected from it, in the same way that no one protected me, namely Robin as it was his book. Y'know, sometimes, when we're lying together, and I know you're asleep, I can hear the soft sound of your breathing.

A hilarious, original story for anyone who has ever been dumped, dumped or lived in a dump - with the cross-over and bestselling appeal of BRIDGET JONES, HIGH FIDELITY and THIS LIFE. I was also born in Birmingham — in my humble opinion the greatest city in the world with the nicest people too. It wasn’t like funk was unheard of in Sheffield – this is the town and the recording studio that gave us Chakk after all – but earlier examples had generally been of the angular, moody sort – the kind you couldn’t dance to without doing a line of whizz and glaring around the dancefloor. Maybe the ever so slightly predictable ending irked me because in real life, things like that don't ever seem to happen. I was totally blown away by the end, I totally thought it was going one way until like 4 pages left it the book, then he totally flipped it on me.There’s his best friend, Alice, who remembers his birthday; Simon, his oldest friend, who he may not be speaking to anymore; Martina, the one-night stand who won’t go away; Kate, the former occupant of his hovel; and Aggi, the one who got away, his legendary girlfriend, the one he has been pining over for the last three years. Something was happening, and bigger singles, bigger albums, bigger concerts and bigger moments were all ahead, but it all has to start somewhere.

If one of my male friends was behaving the way the main character was, I'd have encouraged him to seek psychiatric help rather than dating/marrying him. Celebrate Mike Gayle's 25th year of publishing with this special anniversary edition of his first ever novel! She's balancing, there are so many others with unbroken eyes as well, no cellulite afternoons, she is balancing, balancing on the edge of ugliness tonight, she is balancing.It’s been three years since his heartthrob, Agnes, wrecked his life with a chat that started, “It’s like that song. He has written for a variety of publications including The Sunday Times, the Guardian and Cosmopolitan.