The Laugh Your Socks Off Tour with Jeremy Strong

You can't not have heard of Jeremy Strong: he is probably one of the funniest writers of children's books. Ever. Today, I went to see him with my son (the also-aspiring author) at our Town Hall.

Jermy Jermany Jeremy - apparently a lot of children struggle to spell his name - was as funny in person as his books are to read. He regaled us with stories of his 'studio' (half a garden shed decked out as his writing room, but beware the blue door!) how he tipped the neighbour's baby out of the pram when he was 8 (Jeremy, not the baby), and how his latest book - My Brother's Famous Bottom gets Crowned! - was conceived well before the current royal bump made an appearance.

The children in the audience were giggling all the way through as a result of Jeremy's impressions of the dinosaurs who used to teach him and how he scoots across the studio floor on his wheeled computer chair to get chocolate from the fridge. (If there are teachers reading this, whose pupils come into school on Monday and insist they must have a fridge filled with chocolate in the classroom - blame Jeremy. He works better after a snack, and the kids agreed with him).

I knew Jeremy was a prolific author - my personal favourites of his are the Erik the Viking and famous bottom series - but I was surprised to hear he's written 99 books and is working on his 100th. It was good to know that even he struggles sometimes; The Beak Speaks caused him difficulty when he got half way through the book and realised he couldn't have the boy narrator he'd chosen from that point on, because the boy didn't know about the thing he was supposed to be talking about! Jeremy had to devise a second narrator who could know those things and intertwine the two voices throughout the whole novel. My own plotting problems paled into insignificance compared to that scenario.

I'm not sure what the creative writing workshop was like afterwards - my son felt a little self conscious among the younger children, so he queued to get Invasion of the Christmas Puddings signed, and we left, both of us entertained and quite content.

Mind you, I've just heard him call his Dad 'silly sausage moo-cow'. We've got Jeremy to thank for that, too.