I'm only putting this back following the move because people keep asking me to. I had a long self-exculpatory intro at the old site, but what it boils down to is that I was young when I wrote this and among other flaws it's slightly too indebted to various people. Mostly in a fairly healthy and natural way for a young man, but I should acknowledge here that the punchline of an early chapter is ripped off from the film 'What's Up Doc' (unconsciously, I forgot) and one of the main characters shares a catchphrase with Ignatius J Reilly from 'Confederacy of Dunces' (deliberately I think, the character in question being given to literary allusion). A couple of people have suggested it's reminiscent of the film 'Withnail and I' in places. Re-reading it, yes, perhaps too much so at times, although at the time I wrote it I was so comfortable with that I actually pitched it to publishers (it was rejected many, many times) as 'Withnail and I meets...' - something else, I forget what, I suppose Evelyn Waugh would be the other main influence, although it could definitely stand to be a lot more like Waugh. I had gone out of my way to cut out what I thought were the more overt Withnail-isms, but was happy for it to be vaguely school-of. I had always loved that kind of snob-snot-fop-bitch literary character anyway, and I really did know someone like that (actually three people contributed in some way to the character of Forbes).
Anyway here it is. Some people are devoted to it in a way that touches and baffles me, but overall the proportion of people who enjoy the other writing on this site who've managed to read this is quite small. A lot of it makes me wince now but I suppose it does have its moments, especially when it gets going.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24