1.   I was born in London. Being born was the first thing I was really good at. In fact, everyone in the room was so impressed, they clapped my arrival.

2.  I grew up in the South Downs near a place called Devil’s Dyke. It’s called that because it was dug in an evil plot to destroy England, cooked up by Satan and Dick van Dyke, back when he was a jobbing actor.

3.  When I was at school I was quite good at sword-fighting. Otherwise known as fencing.

4.  Now I am older and more boring, I am quite good at fencing. Otherwise known as putting up fences.

5.  I live in London with my wife. We run a hostel for two very small people. Except they don’t pay me any money and they are also my children.

6.  I’ve been a restaurant journalist, a TV producer and now an author. My dad was a doctor his whole life and my mum was a dentist. So I’m already 3-1 up on them both in terms of careers. I guess they were just lazy.

7.  When I was a restaurant journalist I ate so much food I got gout. It’s basically a condition that greedy kings used to get from eating loads of rich food like roast swan and T-Rex liver.

8.  If I could be an animal I would be a sworgi. It is a swan crossed with a corgi.

9.  To win a bet with my wife, I once changed my name by deedpoll to Dragon Cools. I never bothered changing my passport or bank details, so in the eyes of the law I’m still Tom Vaughan. But I answer to both names if you would like to write to me.

10. People often ask me: “Where do you get your ideas?” The answer is always the same: I buy them off a bloke at the garage for Picnic bars. When he’s not hungry, I just scribble furiously into a notebook until – amidst a sea of jibberish only I understand – an idea forms. Then I trap it and interrogate it for days on end. To finish, I have a bowl of Cheerios. Easy!