Thanks as ever to my agent, Andrew Gordon, David del Monté and my friend Danny Angel, who read the book more than once and gave me invaluable feedback. Thanks to James Jeffrey and Musa Okwonga, both of whom offered some very helpful thoughts on the character of Popper. Thanks to all at Polygon. And with much love to Isobel, Libi, Isaac, Imogen and the rest of my family.
Two sources were fascinating and helpful in equal measure when writing this novel. The first was a small but excellent book called M25: Travelling Clockwise by the late Roy Phippen, a cabbie with a passion for the London Orbital. The second was an article written by the brilliant Dana Goodyear for the New Yorker magazine in August 2011 entitled ‘Grub: Eating bugs to save the planet’.