Death, the real simile for disease - for when we are ill, do we not always feel like we are dying, even if it's only a little? - remains, despite our secularism, the most metaphoricised phenomenon of all.

People tend to think of their lives as having a dramatic arc, because they read too much fiction.

I think the fundamental apprehension is that the city's an organism of some form, rather than being governed from above.

Lust was a positive high-tension cable, plugged into my core, activating a near-epileptic seizure of conviction that this was the one thing I had to do in life.

I am a regular if not exactly enthusiastic patron of my local bookshop. I try to buy at least some books there because I cling to the belief that it's important to maintain those businesses which put a human face on the exchange of money for goods and services.

Why is Mr Universe always from Earth?

The cynics are correct the sense of freewill is only that feeling which we have when we take the necessitated option that most appeals to us.