Everything is becoming science fiction. From the margins of an almost invisible literature has sprung the intact reality of the 20th century.

Films, like memories, seem to re-shoot themselves over the years, reflecting our latest needs and obsessions. In many cases they can change completely, and reveal unexpected depths and shallows. Will Four Weddings and a Funeral be seen one day as a vicious social satire? Could Jaws become as tearful and sentimental as Bambi?

A widespread taste for pornography means that nature is alerting us to some threat of extinction.

They thrived on the rapid turnover of acquaintances, the lack of involvement with others, and the total self-sufficiency of lives which, needing nothing, were never dissapointed.

Burroughs called his greatest novel Naked Lunch, by which he meant it's what you see on the end of a fork. He's a writer of enormous richness whose books are a kind of attempt to blow up this cozy conspiracy, to allow us to see what's on the end of the fork . . . the truth.

Deep assignments run through all our lives; there are no coincidences.

I accepted that a new kind of hate had emerged, silent and disciplined, a racism tempered by loyalty cards and PIN numbers. Shopping was now the model for all human behaviour, drained of emotion and anger.