Texting is a fundamentally sneaky form of communication, which we should despise, but it is such a boon we don't care. We are all sneaks now.
Texting is a supremely secretive medium of communication - it's like passing a note - and this means we should be very careful what we use it for.
Oh, the illusion of choice in the modern world - don't get me started. But don't you agree that the Internet has softened our brains and made us forget that 'choice' used to mean something different from selecting options from menus?
I used to help my dad with a stall selling eggs when I was about 12. People were so hard up they would ask for one egg. But mostly no one came by at all. It was very demoralising.
What one discovers in life, I find, is that one's personality defects don't come and go.
My favorite thing in the world is a quiz show, 'University Challenge,' so you can see what kind of sad person I am.
Writers and painters alike are in the business of consulting their own imaginations, and stimulating the imaginations of others. Together, and separately, they celebrate the absolute mystery of otherness.
Do you lend books and DVDs to people? If so, don't you always regret it? All my life I have forced books on to people who have subsequently forgotten all about it. Meanwhile, on my shelves sit many orphaned books loaned to me over the years by trusting, innocent souls - some as long ago as the Seventies.
Nice clothes fall apart. Nice clocks don't work. Bits fall off the nice cooker. It is hard to accept that pricing is unrelated to quality, but it's plainly true. Nowadays, we pay the price that satisfies our particular personality type; and then we live with the painful consequences.
Don't pessimism and caution naturally go hand in hand?