My job, I remember as I scan the Word document, was to write fifty words apiece for each selected body part. Half a dozen short, exclamation-mark-heavy odes to Cheryl Cole’s lips, Danielle Lloyd’s breasts, Louise Redknapp’s legs, Abbey Clancy’s buttocks, and so on.

I wince at the sentences in front of me, and close the file. Next to it on the desktop, though, is another one that makes me wince even harder.

There it is. My novel. Well, actually, ‘novel’ is probably being slightly too kind: it’s more of a grotesquely bloated short story. There are forty-thousand-odd words in that document, and yet if you asked me what the actual plot was, I would struggle to tell you. I’d spent the last two years chipping away miserably at this pretentious, rambling mess, giving up countless nights and weekends when I could have been out having fun with Daphne or Harv.

Then, a couple of weeks prior to today, I finally got the nerve up to send it out to an agent. And later this afternoon, I will hear back from her.

I’m wondering if my stomach is strong enough to try reading a bit of it when a deep voice booms out behind me.

‘Fuckin’ hell, you’re in early, mate. Or did you sleep here?’

Jonno – the features editor of Thump, the creative genius behind Frankenstein’s WAG – stomps into the office, removing an expensive-looking pair of Oakleys, despite the fact that the sun is a no-show outside. Jonno is in his mid-thirties, with a shaved head and a permanently self-satisfied smirk. He’s wearing combat trousers, a black parka jacket and a bright red Kasabian T-shirt.

‘I’m all right, thanks,’ I say. ‘How are you doing?’

He nods. ‘Yeah, chipper as fuck, mate. Chipper. As. Fuck.’

I’m guessing I’ve been in this job about six weeks at this point, but I’m still not entirely sure that Jonno knows my name yet. If I remember rightly, he tended to address me exclusively as ‘mate’, ‘buddy’ or, on special occasions, ‘fella’.

He plonks himself down at his desk and starts removing various cables and wires and headphones from his rucksack. ‘Had an early one last night in preparation for tonight’s shenanigans,’ he says, adopting a wonky Irish brogue on ‘shenanigans’. Jonno speaks as if he’s constantly hosting the Radio 1 Breakfast Show: loud and brash and irritatingly chirpy, with a strong Cockney inflexion despite originally hailing from Chichester.

‘You’re out with us tonight, right, buddy?’ he asks me. ‘Christmas piss-up?’

‘Yeah, think so.’

‘Oh, mate …’ He runs a hand over his stubbly head. ‘It’s going to get messy. Trust me. Honestly, the girls at Archie’s are absolute filth. Mingers, mostly, but they’re up for anything.’

‘Oh. Right. OK …’