There are two Barry Turners in Wikipedia. The first one is a Canadian politicians in favour of freedom for ducks and the vital conservation of wetlands in North America. The second is a friend of mine, a former Macmillan employee and a prolific author and editor.

He is the editor of the invaluable and enormous Statesman's Yearbook which improves with every annual edition and this year comes with a free single-user online licence.

He is also celebrating the twentieth birthday of another of his brainchildren The Writer's Handbook which has become the leading resource for professional and would-be professional writers. He has written a piece in the London Times on the difficulties and issues around new writers getting published. Judging by the amount of correspondence I get on this whenever it's mentioned I thought I'd encourage readers to visit the associated debate which is getting a fair response.

I reckon that saving the Canadian wetlands is really important for the world but I reckon that Barry does his bit too.

And a propos ducks I came across a wonderful quote from Colin Haycraft, ex owner of the idiosyncratic publishing house Duckworth, cited (his name wrongly spelt) in the Bookseller magazine by Anthony Cheetham: ' A publisher who writes books is about as much use as a pregnant midwife.' In researching him I also came across his wonderful: 'A publisher is a specialized form of bank or building society, catering for customers who cannot cope with life and are therefore forced to write about it.' Have a good weekend.