Deborah Ross: Please will you buy my novelty book?

If you ask me...

If you ask me, and you haven't yet written your novelty book to be published in time for Christmas, I think it's only fair that I should be allowed to ask you a question, and that question is this: what have you been doing? What has been so time-consuming? Strictly and X Factor and The Apprentice? Can I tell you something? You only need to tune in for the last 10 minutes of each final to know who's won!

Hello? Duh? Am I the only one who sees this, again? Sometimes, I seriously believe that I am the only right-thinking person on the planet, which is fair enough, although it does get lonely sometimes. I refer, in particular, to the Annual Right-Thinking Convention, which I have to arrange and then attend all by myself. (I stay at a Travelodge; no point racking up expenses, although it is always best to arrive the night before. I would hate to keep myself waiting the following morning).

Naturally, I fretted about my Christmas novelty book for this year. Should I write it from the point of view of my cat? Or my dog? Or, perhaps, my goldfish, Mr Bubbles of Mayfair, named as such because our hope was always that he would one day become a celebrity hairdresser? (Some hope; he's never even mastered the blow-dry). Should I write one of those New Scientist-type books, full of puzzling queries like: why do people devote 456 hours to a reality TV show when they can tune in to the last 10 minutes to find out who has won? It certainly deeply puzzles me, as well as all other right-thinkers, if there were any.

No, in the end, I settle on one of those almanacs packed full of all those fascinating facts and figures you can dip in and out of although, ideally, not while motorway driving or playing tennis. I hope you will buy my book, which is good. Indeed, as my cat says: "It isn't just good, it's very good." And as my dog says: "It's terrific, actually." But as Bubbles never says: "I am very excited by the new perming and colouring techniques." Bubbles. What a loser.