After finishing Amoeba Dick and sending it to an agent, I'm taking a month off writing before I start work on my next novel - Pretty Poli, or Monsieur Perroquet's Ascent to a High Perch. I'm using this time to attend to my home, for a diy frenzy is necessitated by the slum conditions and domestic desuetude in which I have become enmired whilst writing (i) my PhD and (ii) Amoeba Dick.

On the subjects of Pretty Poli, I'm going to have to do some research. The easy part will be re-reading the Mayor of Casterbridge. But is there anyone out there acquainted with a talkative, and preferably rather rude, parrot?