Life Is Generally Something That Happens Elsewhere.

All The Effort Went Into Getting There And Then I Had Nothing Left. I Thought I'd Got Somewhere, Then I Found I Had To Go On.

Books Are Not About Passing Time. They're About Other Lives. Other Worlds. Far From Wanting Time To Pass, One Just Wishes One Had More Of It. If One Wanted To Pass The Time One Could Go To New Zealand.

Why Do We Not Care To Acknowledge Them? The Cattle, The Body Count. We Still Don't Like To Admit The War Was Even Partly Our Fault Because So Many Of Our People Died. A Photograph On Every Mantlepiece. And All This Mourning Has Veiled The Truth. It's Not So Much Lest We Forget, As Lest We Remember. Because You Should Realise The Cenotaph And The Last Post And All That Stuff Is Concerned, There's No Better Way Of Forgetting Something Than By Commemorating It.

We Have Fish And Chips, Which W. And I Fetch From The Shop In Settle Market-place. Some Local Boys Come In And There Is A Bit Of Chat Between Them And The Fish-fryer About Whether The Kestrel Under The Counter Is For Sale. Only When I Mention It To W. Does He Explain Kestrel Is Now A Lager. I Imagine The Future Is Going To Contain An Increasing Number Of Incidents Like This, Culminating With A Man In A White Coat Saying To One Kindly, "and Now Can You Tell Me The Name Of The Prime Minister?"

Of Course My Standards Are Out Of Date! That's Why They're Called Standards.