Things Are Only Boring If You Are

From Time To Time, As If Heaven-sent To Annoy, Someone Will Ask Me If I'm Self-disciplined When It Comes To My Work. I Usually Look Witheringly At Them And Snarl, 'what Do You Think?' I Mean, How Do You Imagine Anyone Writes A Quarter Of A Million Words A Year For Publication?

In Our Benighted Age, When Films About Amusement Park Rides And Electronic Fidgets Scoop The Honours, Perhaps Hollywood Redux Is The Best We Can Hope For.

I Don't Think In Terms Of That Bizarre Tautology 'value For Money' In My Literary And Journalistic Work - And Nor Will I In My Academic Role. However, If I Don't Believe I'm Helping My Students Towards A Fuller And More Empowering Relationship With The World, Then I'll Resign.

Ideologists Of All Kinds Find A Strange Sort Of Comfort In The Madness Of The Crowd; It Confirms Them In Their Suspicion That History, Far From Being Made By The Great Mass Of Individuals - As Marx Averred - Is Rather Unmade By A Single Massive Individual, A Collective Other, Who Stands In Stark Contrast To You And He.

There Can Be No More Thrilling Idea Of Intimacy That Connecting With Someone Through The Agency Of The Written Word. Here We Meet, On The Page, Naked And Unadorned: Shorn Of Class, Race, Gender, Sexual Identity, Age And Nationality. The Reader I Seek Is A Tautology, For He/she Is Simply Exactly The Person Who Wants To Read What I Have Written...