On BBC2's book programme 'Between the Covers' the other evening, there was a discussion about a new novel by comedian Jonny Sweet called 'The Kellerby Code'. It was interesting to watch the likes of Richard Osman, Ranvir Singh, Ben Miller, Alex Jones and host Sara Cox make comparisons with Patricia Highsmith's 'The Talented Mr Ripley' and Donna Tartt's 'The Secret History', but it was a fair while before anyone identified the work that Sweet's book truly resembles... the film 'Saltburn'.

When the spectre of 'Saltburn' was raised, Richard Osman pointed out that Jonny Sweet completed 'The Kellerby Code' before 'Saltburn' was released. He needed to do this because the plot similarities are remarkable, and a reader who has seen the film could definitely feel as though the recently published book owes a lot to Emerald Fennell's script.

Sweet makes his actual influences pretty clear. P G Wodehouse is a ghostly presence in 'The Kellerby Code' and its characters explicitly reference Evelyn Waugh's 'Brideshead Revisited' more then once.

The similarity to 'Saltburn' is an unlucky coincidence, and it's one that's not unfamiliar to the world of TV advertising. That's not a coy way of me saying there is a tendency towards plagiarism within the industry, although, as we all know, there is. I'm talking instead about those occasions when virtually identical ads are released for competitive products on almost the same day. The timing makes it infeasible that this is a result of copying, which would be an odd thing to do in these circumstances anyway.

Sometimes, it seems that the same idea is sat in the ether waiting to be chanced upon... and it's then just a question of seeing who gets there first, and who does it best. (In this case, Jonny Sweet... since you ask.)