I HEREBY DECLARE MYSELF A FOOL!

​Computers, allied to the hi-tech voodoo superhighway of cyber-space and I.T. and coupled with the slow but sure deterioration of brain cells that to be honest were never red-hot with intelligence even when the writer when young, agile and virile, confuse me. When faced with computer-speak, even when it is deliberately dumbed-down for my benefit, my brain becomes fog-bound and my mind’s eye fills with images that only Homer Simpson might appreciate.
I do not believe I have ever correctly filled out a form in my entire life. Not first off, anyway. And I’ll often use blue ink when it is clearly stipulated that only black is acceptable. On-line renewals of matters of such importance to me as website domains render me as confused as when a schoolchild in a science or maths class. How I am expected to survive in a virtual world when I flounder around in the real world like an eel in the bottom of a boat?
How people with on-line businesses cope with me as a client I do not know. They do a better job than I do with myself, that I can tell you. But anyway, to cut to the chase.
My latest faux-pas is that in my promotional e-mails to racehorse trainers introducing my website and collection of short stories to them – I am using the ‘Horses In Training’ annual and am currently up to C’s – I have blithely informed them that the print-on-demand edition of the book is to be sold for £1.99. This is wrong. Seriously wrong. CreateSpace, Amazon’s print-on-demand wizards, will tell you how incompetent I am with this sort of thing, if you should be in need of further proof. No. ‘Going To The Last’, my collection of horse racing related short stories is in fact to be priced at £8.99. The error occurring simply because I was not aware that CreateSpace take £5.99 from the sale of each copy. The cock-up is entirely mine; I can blame no one else. I, Keith David Knight, am but a fool. If only there were Alcoholics Anonymous type meetings for I.T. Idiots there might yet be hope for me.
The book, though, is beautiful. It even has my name down the spine. You cannot believe the long years I’ve waited to witness such a miracle. Of course, the achievement would be greater, would allow me greater esteem, if The Racing Post were the publishers and not Modest, which is me. Or if Pelham, Headline or Hodder & Stoughton paid for the publication and promotion of the book. But then it was never offered to them as back in the day when I worried myself over such matters no literary agent would even read the manuscript as they were quite certain there was no market for such a quirky collection of short stories. Horse racing, apparently, when it comes to the literary world, is indelibly connected to thrillers and bodice-rippers. Dick Francis and those who have trod his path have done racing no favours with their tawdry novels of corruption, murder and sex in unhygienic places.
There you have it: ‘Going To The Last’, 25 short stories involving Arkle, Desert Orchid, possibly Foinavon and a horse I knew and never will forget, Mischievous Jack, plus a fictional take on the sad death of a jockey I tried to write a book with. Bloody good value at £8.99. You’ll never regret buying the book. I promise. You will not find anything else like it if you shop for seven or eight years.