I am tired of me. After the best part of two weeks criss-crossing America promoting the book I have done so many interviews and answered the same questions so many times that I’ve almost forgotten my own name. The result? “I’m not sure who this guy is but I’m really bored with him”.

At one point I did 26 radio interviews straight in a row. Dumbest question: What’s the future of marriage? (It’s not a dumb question per se, but it’s a dumb question to ask an author whose book has nothing to do with this subject). Nicest question: who inspired you in your personal life journey the most? (my answer: my mum).

I’m not complaining (although I felt physically wrecked by the time I got back). There were some amazing experiences along the way including

• Bumping into Ray Kurzweil at KRON-TV in San Francisco
• Getting nice reviews in the Washington Post (“Stevenson turns out to be an energetic tour guide to the cutting edge of science”) and Wall Street Journal (“Sharp and Fascinating”) – this latter thanks to Matt Ridley
• Having a party thrown for me in New York by the magnificent Laura Galloway where, among many incredible guests, I got to say hello to Juan Enriquez again – and meet his co-author of Homo Evolutis Steve Gullans
• Hanging out with my lovely publicist (Beth Parker) and editor (Rachel Holtzman) for a day
• Getting to meet (and be interviewed by) Seth Shostak – chief astronomer at the mighty SETI institute (and finding out his ‘statistical hunch’ is that we’ll discover alien life within 25 years)
• Doing talks to Microsoft, Google and eight departments of the US Government (and telling them government isn’t working – and why)
• Catching the Gang of Four live in Seattle

Perhaps the scariest thing was flying into Heathrow to know that I had to be the final speaker at The Story, following a talks by Martin Parr, Cory Doctorow and Graham Linehan… gulp (see next blog post)