I suppose I could say that to be interested in innocence already suggests a remove from innocence, perhaps a longing for something that is lost.

This strong sense of who I am that I've always had, since I was very young, is what makes me write.

To me the seventies represent normality, and, of course, it is a normality that is now anachronistic.

I've never been baptised.

I feel a little as if the Buddhism is creeping back, but I mention all this simply in order to illustrate that there is, in my life, a fundamental sense of conflict between something that I am calling 'Buddhism' and my creative impulse.

Apart from the underlying mystery of all things, there is also another possible specific mystery in this situation: Why did I become so interested in Buddhism, Zen and so on? I seem to have a Buddhist voice in my head, and someone asked me about this recently, saying he was intrigued.

This is the strange thing about existing in time. As [Philip] Larkin puts it, "truly, though our element is time, we are not used to the strange perspectives open at each moment of our lives" - something like that.