I believe, literally, in the God of the Old Testament, whom I understand as the Lord of the Jews and the Protestants. I'm a Christian Zionist, as well as a Christian feminist and a Christian socialist.

A wedding is a funeral which masquerades as a feast. And the greater the pageantry, the deeper the savagery.

Knowing that the 'Sex and the City' chicks now rack up almost two centuries between them, why do some of us fuss and hiss about a bit of retouching on their forthcoming film poster?

Feminism seeks to turn the biggest, bloodiest carnivore in the world - passion - into a right-on cud-chewing vegan. It can never work. Sex was never meant to be that way. Sex, on the whole, was meant to be short, nasty and brutish. If what you want is cuddling, you should buy a puppy.

The Feminist Me says that a woman's right to her own body should be inviolate at all times, free from fear of peeping paps.

Transsexualism is, basically, just another, more drastic twist on the male menopause.

Graham Greene famously said that all writers need a chip of ice in their heart; Cusk can come across as the most beautiful ice palace of stalactites and stalagmites, and some people find her company, albeit by proxy, about as inviting as a long weekend in a walk-in frigidaire.