In The Hands Of Politicians Grand Designs

I've Never Been Able To Write A Book Without One Very Strong Character In My Rucksack.

Ideologies Have No Heart Of Their Own. They're The Whores And Angels Of Our Striving Selves.

It Was Man Who Ended The Cold War In Case You Didn't Notice. It Wasn't Weaponry, Or Technology, Or Armies Or Campaigns. It Was Just Man. Not Even Western Man Either, As It Happened, But Our Sworn Enemy In The East, Who Went Into The Streets, Faced The Bullets And The Batons And Said: We've Had Enough. It Was Their Emperor, Not Ours, Who Had The Nerve To Mount The Rostrum And Declare He Had No Clothes. And The Ideologies Trailed After These Impossible Events Like Condemned Prisoners, As Ideologies Do When They've Had Their Day.

It Is Also The Pardonable Vanity Of Lonely People Everywhere To Assume That They Have No Counterparts.

I Made A Series Of Wrong Decisions About Moderately Recent Books, And I've Sold The Rights To Studios For Ridiculous Amounts Of Money And The Films Have Never Been Made. That's The Saddest Thing Of All, Because They're Locked Up And No-one Else Can Make Them.