When Your Sad--like Really Sad--you Only Want

I Miss Him Like One Might Miss A Scar, Or Wooden Leg, Something Disfiguring But Characteristic.

I Would Like My Personal Reading Map To Resemble A Map Of The British Empire Circa 1900.

No Time Spent With A Book Is Ever Entirely Wasted, Even If The Experience Is Not A Happy One: There’s Always Something To Be Learned. It’s Just That, Every Now And Again, You Can Hit A Patch Of Reading That Makes You Feel As If You’re Pootling About. [...] But What Can You Do About It? We Don’t Choose To Waste Our Reading Time; It Just Happens. The Books Let Us Down.

The Kind Of Love My Mum Talks About Is Full Of Worry And Work And Forgiving People And Putting Up With Things And Stuff Like That. It's Not A Lot Of Fun, That's For Sure. If That Really Is Love, The Kind My Mum Talks About, Then Nobody Can Ever Know If They Love Somebody, Can They? It Seems Like What She's Saying Is, If You're Pretty Sure You Love Somebody, The Way I Was Sure In Those Few Weeks, Then You Can't Love Them, Because That Isn't What Love Is. Trying To Understand What She Means By Love Would Do Your Head In.

By The Early Seventies I Had Become An Englishman - That Is To Say, I Hated England Just As Much As Half My Compatriots Seemed To Do.