Not For The First Time In My

I Never Mind The Accusations Of Domesticity, As Long As People Recognise That All Of Us, Even The Luckiest, Will Live Lives In Which We Have Our Hearts Broken, Suffer The Loss Of Loved Ones, Worry Ourselves Half To Death About Our Kids.

It's Just That None Of Us Had The Wit Or Talent To Make Them Into Songs. We Made Them Into Life, Which Much Messier, And More Time Consuming, And Leaves Nothing For Anybody To Whistle.

Books Are, Let's Face It, Better Than Everything Else. If We Played Cultural Fantasy Boxing League, And Made Books Go Fifteen Rounds In The Ring Against The Best That Any Other Art Form Had To Offer, Then Books Would Win Pretty Much Every Time.

It's No Wonder We're All Such A Mess, Is It? We're Like Tom Hanks In Big. Little Boys And Girls Trapped In Adult Bodies And Forced To Get On With It.

But What Else Can We Do When We're So Weak? We Invest Hours Each Day, Months Each Year, Years Each Lifetime In Something Over Which We Have No Control; It Is Any Wonder Then, That We Are Reduced To Creating Ingenious But Bizarre Liturgies Designed To Give Us The Illusion That We Are Powerful After All, Just As Every Other Primitive Community Has Done When Faced With A Deep And Apparently Impenetrable Mystery?