The Fact That You Can Only Do

If You See The World As Gloomily As I See It, The Only Thing To Do Is Laugh Or Shoot Yourself.

It Was Man Who Ended The Cold War In Case You Didn't Notice. It Wasn't Weaponry, Or Technology, Or Armies Or Campaigns. It Was Just Man. Not Even Western Man Either, As It Happened, But Our Sworn Enemy In The East, Who Went Into The Streets, Faced The Bullets And The Batons And Said: We've Had Enough. It Was Their Emperor, Not Ours, Who Had The Nerve To Mount The Rostrum And Declare He Had No Clothes. And The Ideologies Trailed After These Impossible Events Like Condemned Prisoners, As Ideologies Do When They've Had Their Day.

I Was The British Spy Who Had Come Out Of The Woodwork And Told It How It Really Was, And Anything I Said To The Contrary Only Enforced The Myth. And Since I Was Writing For A Public Hooked On Bond And Desperate For The Antidote, The Myth Stuck.

When A Problem Threatens To Engulf You, There's Nothing Like Irrelevant Detail To Keep Your Head Above Water.

You Have No Idea How Humiliating It Was, As A Boy, To Suddenly Have All Your Clothes, Your Toys, Snatched By The Bailiff. I Mean We Were A Middle-class Family, It's Not As If It Was Happening Up And Down The Street. It Made Me Ashamed, I Felt Dirty.