Will you lie to me and promise to read them? Books need to be read. The pages need to be turned.

8.45 a.m. My mother is in the hospital grounds smoking a cigarette. She is looking old and haggard. All the debauchery is catching up with her.

I am surrounded by counselors. My sister is a counselor. My daughter is training to be a counselor. A lot of my friends are counselors.

Sometimes I rant, in a comical way, about how the gods give with one hand and take with the other.

I have decided to be a poet. My father said there isn't a suitable career structure for poets and no pensions and other boring things, but I am quite decided.

I married two weeks after my 18th birthday, far too young, and by the time I was 23 I was a single mother of three small children, Sean, Daniel and Victoria, living in a prefab house.

The monarchy is finished. It was finished a while ago, but they're still making the corpses dance.