Nothing Fails Like Failure

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

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

The Middle Years, Caught Between Children And Parents, Free Of Neither: The Past Stretches Back Too Densely, It Is Too Thickly Populated, The Future Has Not Yet Thinned Out.

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.

You Have To Be Careful What You Imagine, Because The Act Of Imagining Is The Act Of Encouraging Yourself To Be A Certain Kind Of Person.