London, How Could One Ever Be Tired

Poverty, Therefore, Was Comparative. One Measured It By A Sliding Scale. One Was Always Poor, In Terms Of Those Who Were Richer.

There Would Be More Genuine Rejoicing At The Discovery Of A Complete New Novel By Jane Austen Than Any Other Literary Discovery, Short Of A New Major Play By Shakespeare.

Auntie Phyl's Last Months In The Care Home Were Extra Pieces. Age Is Unnecessary. Some Of Us, Like My Mother, Are Fortunate Enough To Die Swiftly And Suddenly, In Full Possession Of Our Faculties And Our Fate, But More And More Of Us Will Be Condemned To Linger, At The Mercy Of Anxious Or Indifferent Relatives, Careless Strangers, Unwanted Medical Interventions, Increasing Debility, Incontinence, Memory Loss. We Live Too Long, But, Like The Sibyl Hanging In Her Basket In The Cave At Cumae, We Find It Hard To Die.

England's Not A Bad Country? It's Just A Mean, Cold, Ugly, Divided, Tired, Clapped-out, Post-imperial, Post- Industrial Slag-heap Covered In Polystyrene Hamburger Cartons. 286

There Are Some Writers Who Wrote Too Much. There Are Others Who Wrote Enough. There Are Yet Others Who Wrote Nothing Like Enough To Satisfy Their Admirers, And Jane Austen Is Certainly One Of These.