Here We Meet, On The Page, Naked

I Am A Regular If Not Exactly Enthusiastic Patron Of My Local Bookshop. I Try To Buy At Least Some Books There Because I Cling To The Belief That It's Important To Maintain Those Businesses Which Put A Human Face On The Exchange Of Money For Goods And Services.

Of Course, With Well-masticated Food Playing The Role Of Social Glue, It's Absolutely Essential That Everyone Clear Their Plate. Sod The Starving Kiddies In Africa - It's The Overfed Ones Here We Need To Worry About.

With Spectacular Events Taking Up So Much Of The Available Anxiety Quotient, We Need To Be Constantly Reminded Of The More Workaday Threats To Our Mortality - Threats That, While They May Also Be Functions Of Human Error, Have Become So Ubiquitous That We've Begun To Apprehend Them As Natural Phenomena.

In Truth, Even If They Have An Imperfect Insight Into Their Own Methods, I Still Slightly Mistrust Writers Of Fiction Who Are Assured Literary Critics; It Makes Me Suspect That They Favour The Word Over The World It Should Describe. Such Scribes Fall Victim Too Easily To The Solecism Of Equating Style With Morality.

As A Bookish Adolescent, I Sopped Up Texts As If I Were Blotting Paper And They Were Fluid.