Since I've been hired to contribute to the storyline of 'Doom 4' I can say what was always true anyway. I'm working. You see, for a writer, lots of stuff that doesn't look like working is actually working. Looking out of the window, for example. Balancing a pencil on the edge of the desk in order to find its exact fulcrum. Playing 'Doom.

It is, of course, the first recourse of every elitist to see social barbarism in others.

Why can’t our job here on earth be simply to inspire each other?

It's just that to a lot of British people George Bush represents the worst of all things American. He's the right-wing Christian crusader, the toxic Texan who refused Kyoto, the poll-cheat eel who undermined democracy on the back of something called 'chads,' a notion we've never entirely grasped.

George Orwells 1984 frequently tops surveys of our greatest books: its not a celebration of poetic language. Its decidedly anti-literary, a masterpiece of personal and political narrative sequence. And its subject matter is crucial, because what 1984 shows is that language can be a dirty trick.

Perhaps writers should never be allowed to get together in a workplace context. It's not like studying computer science, after all. The emotions are at large, and are shared and are questioned. There is a vulnerability.

What I mean is this: you meet someone, you think about them. You're already changing because of the way you think about them. You meet them again, you think about them some more, you're changing again. And on it goes. You are changing right now. Before my eyes.