But maybe that two year gap helped you get all your photographs together because you must have taken squillions of them.

Yes.

And of course, when I started the Mission Penguin, it was never for a book, never to even show my photographs.

It was just a personal mission for me.

So I'd never even... really shown anybody and then after penguin number 16 a friend who i sing with asked me if i would prepare a penguin talk because they were raising funds for their village community shop and post office they were going to do a big dinner and i would be the speaker So I pulled together all my slides.

I worked out the story of Mission Penguin, got a nice order together and gave this little speech at this dinner.

I'll say little, it's about an hour.

How did you get the book deal?