If the real world were a book, it would never find a publisher. Overlong, detailed to the point of distraction-and ultimately, without a major resolution.

Death, I had discovered long ago, was available in varying flavors, and none of them particularly palatable.

Death and the end of one's life are two very different things indeed.

How many people want to read about three disreputable pigs and a dopey wolf with a disposition towards house demolition?

The government was to raise the duty on cheese to 83 percent, an unpopular move that would doubtless have the more militant citizens picketing cheese shops.

Acceptable rules of conduct were suspended when it came to the spoon shortage. The deficit had gotten so bad that prices were all but unaffordable, and dynastic spoon succession had become a matter of considerable interest. Spoons were even postcode engraved and carried on one's person to eliminate theft, and good table manners, one of the eight pillars upon which the Collective was built, had been relaxed to allow tea to be stirred - shockingly - with the handle of a fork.

I shouldn't believe anything I say, if I were you-and that includes what I just told you.