Noses pressed to the windows of Waterstones, anxiously checking and re-checking Amazon to see if it’s on sale yet, repeated pestering calls to the library, annoying burning sensation in your throat – these are just some of the symptoms you are almost certainly experiencing right now as the unbearable tension builds to a crescendo of hysteria in the run up to the publication of my next opus, Sushi and Beyond: What the Japanese Know About Cooking. Apart from the burning sensation, which is probably indigestion.

Here it is…

Oh for heaven’s sake, control yourself. It’s only a book (he said, knowing full well that you’d pimp your grandmother for just the merest glimpse at the wonders that lie within those seductive covers).

Well, as you set up camp outside Borders to be there for midnight on Wednesday along with my legions of fan, I thought I would give you a few teasers from the book over the next couple of days, just to turn that feverish excitement dial up to ’11’…