Between Funny And Witty Falls The Shadow

At John Schlesinger's Funeral At A Synagogue In St John's Wood Some Years Ago The Person I Stood Next To Said To Me Encouragingly, 'come On, Stephen - You're Not Singing. Have A Go!' 'believe Me, Paul, You Don't Want Me To,' I Said. Besides, I Was Having A Much Better Time Listening To Him. 'no. Go On!' So I Joined In The Chorus. 'you're Right,' Paul Mccartney Conceded. 'you Can't Sing.

Taste Every Fruit Of Every Tree In The Garden At Least Once. It Is An Insult To Creation Not To Experience It Fully. Temperance Is Wickedness.

Sometimes There Just Isn't Enough Vomit In The World.

History Is Not The Story Of Strangers, Aliens From Another Realm; It Is The Story Of Us Had We Been Born A Little Earlier. History Is Memory; We Have To Remember What It Is Like To Be A Roman, Or A Jacobite Or A Chartist Or Even - If We Dare, And We Should Dare - A Nazi. History Is Not Abstraction, It Is The Enemy Of Abstraction.

I Will Defend The Absolute Value Of Mozart Over Miley Cyrus, Of Course I Will, But We Should Be Wary Of False Dichotomies. You Do Not Have To Choose Between One Or The Other. You Can Have Both. The Human Cultural Jungle Should Be As Varied And Plural As The Amazonian Rainforest. We Are All Richer For Biodiversity. We May Decide That A Puma Is Worth More To Us Than A Caterpillar, But Surely We Can Agree That The Habitat Is All The Better For Being Able To Sustain Each.