Iain: I was literally about to do that.

Heide: And you should have gone into some detail and explained that our heroes are a young woman stuck in a dead end job who dreams of becoming a rock guitarist, a school history teacher who’s been fired in disgrace and a teenager from four hundred years in the past who narrowly escapes being burned at the stake for being a witch.

Iain: I think I was going to cover those in the course of the newsletter.

Heide: You were but you got distracted by talking about time travel and your wife’s birthday.

Iain: My wife’s birthday?

Heide: Trust me. You go right off track.

Iain: I will keep things very much on track, thank you! But, yes, look at this time travel bracelet I invented. Give me your arm, it goes on just like this. See? Now, imagine you could travel back in time?

Heide: Only back? Not forward?

Iain: Backwards or forwards. What would you use it for? Where would you go?

Heide: First of all I’d better fix all the stupid things I’ve done and said. 

Iain: ALL the stupid things you’ve done and said?

Heide: Oh, wait. I will be gone for a LONG time.

Iain: No, this is time travel so you won’t. You could fix everything you wanted to fix and be back in time for supper.

Heide: Oh, I know! Once our readers have replied to this and told us all of the amazing ideas THEY have for using time travel, I will nip back and tell us, so that we can use them in this series of books.

Iain: Yes! Let’s do that. So, you’d use time travel to just fix things in your own life and steal ideas to stick in books?

Heide: That sounds like a perfectly good use of the power to travel through time. I suppose you’d use it go to sight-seeing through history.

Iain: Maybe. Actually, you know what, I’d probably use it to go back in time and see films at the cinema on the big screen that I somehow missed the first time round.

Heide: And I thought my ideas were frivolous. That’s almost like using time travel like a video recorder.

Iain: Why not? Miss your favourite TV show, nip back in time to watch it? In fact, miss anything and you can go back and be on time. Miss an appointment, miss a work deadline, miss a birthday… Actually, there was one time, about twenty years ago when I forgot my wife’s birthday.

Heide: So you *would* use time travel to go and fix mistakes in your own life!

Iain: Only as a cure for forgetfulness. I might go do that now. Can I have the time travel bracelet?

Heide: You need to tell our readers about our books first before you go gallivanting off.

Iain: I don’t have time for that.

Heide: I’ll makes sure you have time. I will pop back a few minutes and then tell you to stick to the point so you can swiftly tell our readers all about our books before you go on your trip to the past to un-forget your wife’s birthday.

Iain: No, I’m sure that’s not necessary — 

BZZZZKT! — Puff!

Iain: Hey! You took my time machine!

(careful readers who might notice that Heide is now stuck travelling in a impossible loop forever and might ask questions like "Well, where was Heide before she came from the future?" and "Has Heide now got two time-travelling bracelets and will she just keep getting an extra one each time she goes back in time?" should be warned that our books are full of things like this. You were warned.)