Now When I Look Back To The

Sometimes I Get So Immersed In My Own Company, If I Unexpectedly Run Into Someone I Know, It's A Bit Of A Shock And Takes Me A While To Adjust.

It Is One Of The Enjoyments Of Retirement That You Are Able To Drift Through The Day At Your Own Pace, Easy In The Knowledge That You Have Put Hard Work And Achievement Behind You.

I'm Interested In Memory Because It's A Filter Through Which We See Our Lives, And Because It's Foggy And Obscure, The Opportunities For Self-deception Are There. In The End, As A Writer, I'm More Interested In What People Tell Themselves Happened Rather Than What Actually Happened.

I Quizzed Him A Lot On This Point And I Suspect The Truth Was That It Was Like A Lot Of Things At That Age: You Don't Have Any Clear Reason, You Just Do It. You Do It Because You Think It Might Get A Laugh, Or Because You Want To See If It'll Cause A Stir. And When You're Asked To Explain Afterwards, It Doesn't Seem To Make Any Sense.

It Is All Very Well, In These Changing Times, To Adapt One's Work To Take In Duties Not Traditionally Within One's Realm; But Bantering Is Of Another Dimension Altogether. For One Thing, How Would One Know For Sure That At Any Given Moment A Response Of The Bantering Sort Is Truly What Is Expected? One Need Hardly Dwell On The Catastrophic Possibility Of Uttering A Bantering Remark Only To Discover It Wholly Inappropriate.