I think the writer's quite low down in the hierarchy really. But the fact that they took the piss out of Nicholas [Hynter] who, besides being the director, is also director of the National Theatre is, I'd have thought, slightly more risky.

So boring you fall asleep halfway through her name.

Mark my words, when a society has to resort to the lavatory for its humour, the writing is on the wall.

Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting.

Your whole life is on the other side of the glass. And there is nobody watching.

The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something undeferring about literature. Books did not care who was reading them or whether one read them or not. All readers were equal, herself included. Literature, she thought, is a commonwealth; letters a republic.

One recipe for happiness is to have to sense of entitlement.' To this she added a star and noted at the bottom of the page: 'This is not a lesson I have ever been in a position to learn.