London, How Could One Ever

Poverty, Therefore, Was Comparative. One Measured It By A Sliding Scale. One Was Always Poor, In Terms Of Those Who Were Richer.

Men And Women Can Never Be Close. They Can Hardly Speak To One Another In The Same Language. But Are Compelled, Forever, To Try, And Therefore Even In Defeat There Is No Peace.

Because If One Has An Image, However Dim And Romantic, Of A Journey's End, One May, In The End, Surely Reach It, After No Matter How Many Detours And Deceptions And Abandonings Of Hope. And Hope Could Never Have Been Entirely Abandoned, Even In The Worst Days.

I Used To Be A Reasonably Careless And Adventurous Person Before I Had Children; Now I Am Morbidly Obsessed By Seat-belts And Constantly Afraid That Low-flying Aircraft Will Drop On My Children's School.

England's Not A Bad Country? It's Just A Mean, Cold, Ugly, Divided, Tired, Clapped-out, Post-imperial, Post- Industrial Slag-heap Covered In Polystyrene Hamburger Cartons. 286