A lot of people read Just Annoying! and say, "Gee, you must have been a really annoying kid." This really annoys me and I would like to take this opportunity to set the record straight. Just Annoying! is not autobiographical. I am much more annoying than Andy is, or could ever hope to be.

I have not only tried to fill a shower cubicle up with water, I have tried to fill the whole house up with water. I would have succeeded, too, if I'd remembered to shut my bedroom window.

That's another thing that's really annoying about me. I have a really bad memory. I never remember anybody's birthday. Not even my own. And the really annoying thing is that everybody else always seems to forget my birthday as well. Now that's what I call annoying.

I'm the sort of person who likes to point at people in crowded shopping centres and comment loudly on anything unusual or amusing about their appearance. If I see somebody making a call from a public telephone I am compelled to press my face against the booth window and do a blowfish. I like to go up to complete strangers and ask questions like "Where do babies come from?" Then, when they're halfway through answering me, I just run away. Now that's what I call annoying.

Not only am I really annoying, but a lot of things really annoy me. For example, fish and chip shops that call themselves 'Fish and Chipperies'. Other cars driving on the road when I'm using it. Really long queues in the supermarket. And woolly mammoths (not that they're so much of a problem nowadays, but you know what I mean).

A lot of annoying things happened while I was trying to write Just Annoying! I got pneumonia. I moved house. Summer was just one heatwave after another and in the middle of it all was Christmas. Then, as if that wasn't enough, I realised that I hadn't seen my dog for a week. I had to write Lost posters and plaster them on every lamppost and shop window in my neighborhood. And then I remembered that the reason I hadn't seen my dog for a week was because I don't have a dog. Now that's what I call annoying.

Another annoying thing about writing a book is all the people you have to thank once it's over. I'd like to take this opportunity to annoy them all now by not thanking them: especially Terry Denton, without whose drawings the book would be much less annoying.

The only person I would like to thank is one of my teachers from secondary school. If you are lucky, at some stage in your time at school you will come across a teacher who changes the way you see yourself and the world. Someone who not only instructs, but inspires. Someone who not only nourishes your mind, but nurtures your soul. Mr Bechervaise, you were such a teacher, and I will never forget you, nor your parting words, which even now are ringing in my ears: "GO AWAY, ANDY, YOU'RE ANNOYING ME!"