A bit on the side

Adultery is something that always puzzles me. Most people these days are so busy with one thing or another, I wonder how on earth they find the time to have a second relationship on top of their existing one.

I also wonder how they endure the stress of constantly keeping the other relationship secret and preventing their regular partner from getting suspicious.

And what about the extra expense, if you're barely solvent as it is? The hotel rooms, the restaurant meals, the travelling around, the presents.

I've never had any desire for a clandestine affair. Not just because I'm very happy with my existing partner but because I'm a fairly straightforward person and deceit and subterfuge doesn't come naturally.

When you're putting all your effort into maintaining a long-standing relationship, surely putting a similar effort into a bit on the side must be totally exhausting?

But it seems to be amazingly common. You can't open a newspaper without reading about someone's affair. Or some randy Don Juan who's had one affair after another for decades.

What's also intriguing is the very different attitudes of the person who's been cheated on. Some go completely crazy, physically attacking their partner, destroying their clothes or possessions, even walking out. But others shrug their shoulders and accept that their partners will never be faithful so they may as well get used to it.

I've never been tempted into infidelity. There was a woman once I was strongly attracted to, but I quickly decided that the damage it could do was simply not worth a bit of furtive and possibly disappointing sex. In any case, she was much younger than me and wouldn't have been remotely interested.

A bit on the side? Not for me, thanks.

A bit on the side

I have mixed feelings about affairs. Are they always to be condemned, whatever the circum-stances? Or are they the result of natural human impulses, something that's understandable and excusable?

They're often described as "cheating", but is it more a matter of irresistible longings or personal fulfillment than cheating? Is it cheating to want more than you already have? Is it cheating to be drawn to someone and to act on it?

The real question of course is how the partner who is "cheated on" is likely to react if the truth comes out. They might simply turn a blind eye and let it go on - or fizzle out. Or they might be totally devastated and give their partner the boot. Or anything in between. If you start an affair knowing full well that your partner is likely to be shattered if they find out, then you're an idiot.

Neither Jenny or I have had affairs, but I was once sorely tempted. There was one woman (let's call her Yvonne) who had an absolutely electrifying effect on me. She aroused me so strongly that I seriously thought of trying to take it further. But I knew which side my bread was buttered, I knew the consequences could be catastrophic, and I had enough will-power to resist. But I'm still amazed at the quite inexplicable effect she had on me.

Mind you, if thought of the consequences hadn't stopped me, then I would have shrunk from the degree of secrecy and lying it would involve. I dislike secrecy, I prefer things to be out in the open,  and having to be scrupulously secretive for months on end would have really screwed me up. I would probably have blurted out the truth in a matter of days.

I won't be getting a reputation as a philanderer any time soon.

Why compete?

I've never liked competing. I've always thought it was a vastly over-rated concept. I much prefer to set my own standards and try to reach them. Competing so often becomes a mindless desire to "win" and to defeat other people, frequently in the name of some dubious goal like making a fat profit or being famous or exciting envy.

And does competition drive up standards, as it's generally said to do? Look at all those jobs where competition is rife and tell me how high the standards are. Politicians? Estate agents? Journalists? Car salesmen? It's more like a race to the bottom, with principles thrown out the window in favour of being top dog and trouncing your rivals.

All too often the frantic desire to win leads to widespread cheating and fiddling - drug-taking by sportspeople, plastic surgery by models, gazumping by estate agents. Publicly it's condemned, but in private the attitude is, anything goes in order to reach the top.

I've always thought that the people who achieve the most, be it happiness, job satisfaction, a purpose in life or creative innovation, tend to be motivated not by competition but by personal standards they've set for themselves and tried to live up to or exceed. Rather than endlessly looking over their shoulder at what other people are doing, they're ploughing their own furrow and following their own impulses.

They may be aware of what others are doing, they be influenced and inspired by them, but they're not competing with them, they're simply using them as grist to the mill, as a shot in the arm.

The people who impress me most are not Oscar winners and gold medallists so much as the determined individuals who make a name for themselves solely by pursuing their own high-minded goals and meeting them. Camila Batmanghelidgh, say, or Paris Lees or Shami Chakrabarti. I take my hat off to them.

Ghost writers

Apparently it’s getting quite common for well-known authors to farm out the writing process to other people and avoid the gruelling ordeal of actually producing a book. Quite often the ghost writer’s name is not even on the book so the public has no idea they’re being cheated.

It’s claimed that all crime writer James Patterson does is send four line chapter summaries to a co-writer who then fleshes them out into a complete book. Which is how he managed to publish 14 new titles in one year.

Personally I wouldn’t read a book that I knew was largely written by someone else. It’s that particular author‘s style and flavour I appreciate and I wouldn’t want to read another writer’s probably inferior attempts at copying it.

Though if the author’s writing style was so prosaic and run-of-the-mill that any halfway competent writer could copy it slickly enough to fool the public, I wouldn’t want to read it in the first place. I would stick to someone original enough that any cheap imitation simply wouldn’t be convincing.

I also think that if a ghost writer is being used, not only should they be credited on the cover of the book but it should be made clear just how much of the book they’re responsible for. To deliberately pass off a book as entirely the work of someone who has merely produced a plot outline is outrageous.

I also wonder why on earth someone like James Patterson needs to resort to such subterfuge when he is said to earn around $94 million a year. If he’s tired of writing, why doesn’t he just retire gracefully and do something more enjoyable with his time?

Of course any author with any integrity would throw their hands up in horror at the idea of hiring a ghostwriter, and would never ever hand over the writing to another person. They‘re far too protective of their own individual style to entrust it to anyone else, however talented they may be.

There is absolutely no truth in the rumour that Nickhereandnow is written entirely by a team of unpaid teenage interns based in an ugly office block in Chipping Norton. I can’t understand where such vicious smears come from. I can assure you this tedious rubbish is entirely my own work from start to finish.

My thanks to Genevieve Hassan of the BBC, whose article this post is indebted to.