Like All Right-listening Folk, I Am An

Without A Shadow Of Doubt, Trafalgar Square Has To Be One Of The Most Crap Urban Public Spaces In The World.

Certainly, For Time Out Of Mind, An Obsessive Dwelling On Happier Former Days Has Been Synonymous With Getting Older, While It Was The Juvenescent Who Rushed With Open Arms To Embrace The Future.

The British And American Literary Worlds Operate In An Odd Kind Of Symbiosis: Our Critics Think Our Contemporary Novelists Are Not The Stuff Of Greatness Whereas Certain Contemporary Americans Indubitably Are. Their Critics Often Advance The Exact Opposite: British Fiction Is Cool, American Naff.

The Life Of The Professional Writer - Like That Of Any Freelance, Whether She Be A Plumber Or A Podiatrist - Is Predicated On Willpower. Without It There Simply Wouldn't Be Any Remuneration, Period.

You May Have Gathered That I Am Not The Most Cheerful Of Revellers - Some Characterise Me As The Death And Soullessness Of Any Party But It Wasn't Always So, Believe Me.