Coming close to signing off on the new book, I have a long phone conversation with my editor, mostly to do with prepositions. Language, stared at, does not stay still. Under the microscope little words have tiny tails, they wriggle. The sense then that language has a grammar, that grammar is made up of rules, but that the rules are often no such thing. My editor has some big artillery on her desk (Complete Oxfords etc). My argument often no better than 'It sounds right to me'. Ended the call feeling slightly anxious about this medium I work in (with?) but deeply grateful to be one of those lucky writers with an editor who will spend a goodly part of a Tuesday morning discussing the difference between 'of' and 'about'.