... Once I start a book I finish it. That was the way one was brought up. Books, bread and butter, mashed potato - one finishes what's on one's plate. That's always been my philosophy.

We were put to Dickens as children but it never quite took. That unremitting humanity soon had me cheesed off.

I've never forgotten that experience. But I had nobody at school that was either like Hector or Irwin. The masters had no idea what was expected of you in the scholarship exam, so you just had to busk it really.

It's subjunctive history. You know, the subjunctive? The mood used when something may or may not have happened. When it is imagined.

To begin with, it's true, she read with trepidation and some unease. The sheer endlessness of books outfaced her and she had no idea how to go on; there was no system to her reading, with one book leading to another, and often she had two or three on the go at the same time.

We started off trying to set up a small anarchist community, but people wouldn't obey the rules.

So boring you fall asleep halfway through her name.