Some say that Cusk has no sense of humour, but expecting giggles from this writer would be akin to expecting sonnets from Benny Hill.

But just think what a boring, bread-and-milk world this would be without the boastful.

The allegedly 'classy' magazines often seem to be in an endless, undeclared competition to see who can climb furthest up the fundament of Gwyneth Paltrow or Jennifer Lopez.

Lots of women love to accuse men of being immature when the fellow in question displays a reluctance to "commit"...

It's very hard to imagine the phrase "consumer society" used so cheerfully, and interpreted so enthusiastically, in England.

Prostitution is the supreme triumph of capitalism. When the sex war is won prostitutes should be shot as collaborators for their terrible betrayal of all women, for the moral tarring and feathering they give indigenous women who have had the bad luck to live in what they make their humping ground.

Whenever I am sent a new book on the lively arts, the first thing I do is look for myself in the index.