“A lack of profit is like a cancer, but a lack of cashflow is like a fatal heart attack.” T

Theo Paphitis: entrepreneur and outspoken T.V. star of Dragon's Den, tells of his rise from poor immigrant to tea boy; from tea boy to major entrepreneur, celebrity and Chairman of Millwall F.C, in this charismatic account of his success. Forever candid and not yet satisfied with his achievements, he now reveals the methods that took him to the very top of his game, so that every one of us – with the right hardwork and attitude – can reach the top.

Theo Paphitis's profile and books

“Dennis unflinchingly details his every failing – snobbery, misery, adultery, cowardice... Dennis’ account of [Amanda Holden’s] affair is gripping... his autobiography is full of fascinating episodes and anecdotes.” The Guardian

Les Dennis's profile and reviews

“...While the helicopter was still plunging down, the pilot had to tilt its nose so that he could try to see where the missile was coming from and, as a result, we were rocking and rolling about all over the place. 'Oh, God!' I thought. 'This is it. I am going to die.' Then, because the backs of the Merlins are open and you can see out, I saw anti-missile flares going out from each side of our helicopter.

There is absolutely no doubt that if the ground-to-air missile aimed at us had hit its target, my life and that of everybody else on board would have been brought to a sudden end. But, thanks to the Merlin's supersensitive early warning system, and the pilot's brilliant manoeuvring and evasive action, which included the firing of the decoy flares while we were still plunging a couple of thousand feet, we eventually landed shaken - and most certainly stirred - but unharmed in Shaibah, the largest British base in Iraq. And I was able to begin my work as the new Forces' Sweetheart....”

Katherine Jenkins's profile and reviews

“Piecing together Sarah’s story was a real challenge, not only because it spanned an entire decade, but also because it involved getting inside the mind of an arch manipulator – Robert Freegard. Freegard’s crime of fraud and deception is one of the most complex in British legal history. It involved numerous victims, and an entire web of deceit, and to unravel it meant analysing the psychological methods he used and the effect these had on his victims. To capture a first person story, but also an accurate portrayal of the crime I had to write in three dimensions – the story as Sarah knew it from her perspective, and the counter story of what her parents believed was happening; events that were taking place that Sarah knew nothing about as Freegard expanded and interwove his victims’ lives into a complex web of lies; and an analysis of what Freegard was up to, his motivation, and how he used mind games to prey on his victims’ fears to amass himself a small fortune. I can only compare this process to trying to solve a Rubik’s cube. In order to comprehend the big picture of Freegard’s crime I needed a timeline. This involved not only talking to victims and their families, the police, and the Crown Prosecution Service, but also ploughing through thousands of pages of evidence pertaining to the case.

“What emerged out of this period of intense research was truly staggering. I had not appreciated the sheer audacity, scale and labyrinthine ways in which Freegard operated, and understanding this it is easy to see why his victims believed what he said, and how Freegard remained undetected for so long. Contextualised within this bigger picture, Sarah’s story runs as a spine throughout the book. Through her eyes we see events as she genuinely believed them, the doubts and uncertainties she felt, and the way in which Freegard always successfully squashed them by plausible argument or holding another threat over her. The end result is a story that reads like a thriller. It is sobering indeed to think all the events are true.

“It was always important to me as an investigative filmmaker and author to show how such a devastating crime can happen so easily and to anyone. In April this year, the court of Appeal quashed Freegard’s convictions for kidnapping by fraud, and the life sentences were swept aside. As a result he is set to be freed in a few months’ time. In my view current English law fails adequately to recognise these complex psychological crimes. I hope the book can open debate on this subject, and eventually lead to a recognition for the need to pass new laws.”

Kate Snell May 2007

“The novel needs a skeleton plot worked out from start to finish. You do not need to hold to your plot once you have started writing; to some extent the characters can take charge. But if you allow them to wander around regardless of the original scheme the result will be wild and unconvincing. I wrote four thrillers as co-author with Andrew Osmond and one with Stephen Lamport. This requires a strict discipline if you are to save both the novel and your friendship with your literary partner, but I recommend it. You then have an inbuilt critic alongside you to help you over the awkward moments when you feel dried up and hopeless.”

“I went to law school in the U.S. in 1981 to work for prisoners on Death Row, because they seemed to be the most hated on earth, despised to the point that people wished them to die an often torturous death. I spent two decades helping to represent more than 300 prisoners in capital cases. The tragedy of September 11th then turned the focus on Muslims, and the Bush Administration’s first step in a war for democracy and the rule of law seemed hypocritical to the point of folly: to set up an island prison in Cuba, and refuse to allow the prisoners any rights.

I therefore immediately called around my friends in the death penalty community to sue to stop this ill-conceived policy. The team that began the litigation was a tiny group of volunteers. Because the U.S. military tried to keep the names of the prisoners’ secret, they first had to identify a plaintiff, and that was a British prisoner, Shafiq Rasul. Two years later, Shafiq would prevail in the Supreme Court in the case that first established the prisoners’ rights.

In the meantime, working with the charity I established in 1999, Reprieve, I have added the Guantanamo work to the many capital cases I still have on-going, visiting prisoners in Cuba more than 15 times. There are still as many as 14,000 ‘ghost’ prisoners held by the U.S. without rights around the world. Bad Men is their story, and a personal account of the dire consequences of President Bush’s secret prison programme.”

Clive Stafford Smith, September 2006

“The story which began in an overgrown Paddington yard, back in 1995, is not yet over. Much has changed with the passage of the years. I am wiser as well as older – not only whiter around the muzzle and longer in the tooth, but also a little less likely to leap without looking… The Man has grown old too, but less gracefully. And if our walks are any guide, he is not as fit as I am. Unlike me, he has not looked after himself. I eat a carefully balanced diet, drink only water, take regular exercise and have my teeth cleaned every night. All I can be sure about him is that he cleans his teeth. But although he finds it difficult negotiating stiles, whilst I bound over them in one leap, he still hobbles along at the other end of the lead. And my feelings about him are the same as they were on that December night when he found me in a basket outside the bedroom door. I knew straight away that he was not just for Christmas, but for life.”

Buster's father was an Alsatian and his mother a Staffordshire Bull Terrier. He came to live with Roy Hattersley in December 1995. Of mixed parentage, Buster was educated privately by an ex-RAF dog handler, who went to work for the Blue Cross.

Roy Hattersley has written several other books on his own.

Adrian Greaves is a former army officer who became a senior police officer before turning to writing. A hobby mountaineer (ascents include the Eiger, Matterhorn and Mont Blanc), father of three adventure loving sons, and a qualified psychotherapist, Adrian Greaves has written extensively about the Zulu Wars and his investigative Rorke's Drift is a noted best seller on the subject.

He has had a life long interest in T.E. Lawrence and spent several months studying Lawrence's psychological profile as part of his higher police training. In the same way that his visits to the battlefields of Zululand raised many questions, so did his visits to the deserts of Arabia. The more he followed in Lawrence's footsteps, the more impressed he became with Lawrence's bravery and exploits. Greaves' psychological approach unearthed evidence refuting Lawrence's alleged capture by the Turks and he explains neatly why Lawrence engaged in myth making. Greaves also deals with Lawrence's contempt for medals and decorations and soundly explains why Lawrence eschewed fame and fortune in favour of anonymous poverty, much to the consternation of General Allenby and Winston Churchill.

“I live in Cairo, for the adventure and desert.”

“Every archive I ever visit seems to yield gems; among the excitements when writing Tip and Run was the discovery of the original surrender document signed by von Lettow-Vorbeck, the German commander in East Africa; and finding evidence that Jan Smuts, commanding the British and South African troops, seriously considered using gas against the German troops. I also felt very privileged to meet one of the last, perhaps the last, surviving African askari to have taken part in the campaign.”

There’s a spot on Broadway in Manhattan where two magazine stores used to sit across the street from each other. One of the stores featured neat racks of impeccably arranged magazines, any copy of which could be tracked by computer. At the other store, magazines were sometimes scattered about randomly, with Cosmopolitan snuggled up against Fortune; Real Simple alongside Jet; and Smithsonian elbowing Psychotronic. No wonder: Essam, the owner and manager of the messy store, had no computer inventory system to tell him what he sold or which magazines needed restocking. He and his assistant, Zak, operated from memory and straightened up as best they could during quiet periods and at the end of the day.

Not surprisingly, the first store attracted more customers and did a brisker business, selling more magazines than Essam’s. Equally unsurprising, only one store remains in business today, the other having been shuttered by losses. But there’s a strange punch line: Essam’s store is the one still flourishing. He didn’t sell as many magazines as his former competitor, but he made more money. The simple reason is that he avoided some of the profit-devouring costs associated with the extra staff his competitor felt it needed to straighten up its racks, as well as the computerized inventory systems it needed to track magazines. Given that profit, not to mention survival, is a reasonable measuring stick of business effectiveness, it’s fair to say that any benefits the other store might have accrued by being neater and more organized were outweighed by their associated costs. In other words, one reason Essam’s store has been successful is because it’s messy.

Extract from the introduction to A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder