I’m keen to know why Holland is so lacking in compassion where Bryn Gilligan is concerned. What is it about the combination of drug taking and cheating that he so objects to, when he has no problem with either one in isolation? He cheated on his wife for at least six months with Paula Riddiough, former Labour MP and saboteur of her only son’s education (though to be fair, any red-blooded male would be tempted by the luscious Paula), so it can’t be Gilligan’s prolonged dishonesty that bothers Holland. A cheat himself, one might hope he would show a bit of leniency toward his underhand compadres. I’ve had the misfortune to be married twice—to Princess Doormat and Dr. Despot—and I cheated on them both with gay abandon of the heterosexual kind. It’s a sad fact that however beautiful the woman you marry, you will always meet one who is more or equally beautiful, eager to wrap her limbs around you and possessed of the additional appeal of being not-your-wife. So . . . having said all that, am I shocked to the core that Bryn Gilligan broke the rules in order to win races? No. How could I be, as a rule-breaker myself? To paraphrase the well-known adage, I read news stories about the repugnant behavior of famous people to know that I am not alone.

Is it the drugs, then, that Keiran Holland can’t forgive? No, I can prove it’s not that. Holland was one of the judges, in the Supernatural/Horror category, of this year’s Books Enhance Lives Awards. The unanimously chosen winner in that category was Reuben Tasker for his novel Craving and Aversion, which begins with the line “Every translucent love contains particles of rot-green hate.” Only if you’re paranormally stoned, I’m afraid, Reuben.

Tasker’s enduring devotion to cannabis is an open secret in the literary world, as is his belief that the drug expands his imagination. He’s on record as saying he doesn’t think he’d be able to write a book worth anyone’s time without it. Assuming some or all of this year’s other Supernatural/Horror contenders are tediously abstemious on the narcotics front, doesn’t that mean that Tasker’s drug taking might have given him an unfair edge over the competition? Shouldn’t he have to give back his prize money, arrange a head-hung-in-shame photo shoot and sob within dampening distance of Piers Morgan?

Did this dilemma cross Keiran Holland’s mind even for a fleeting instant? Did it occur to him retrospectively, as condemnations of Bryn Gilligan poured forth from his keyboard, that he was one of a panel of judges that awarded a prestigious prize to a law-breaking substance abuser?