I'm an anarchist. I'm implacably opposed to heirarchical systems of power and control. I also mistrust crowds, as they often operate according to their lowest common denominator. In terms of evolutionary psychology, the crowd is very close to a herd of stampeding wildebeest.

Sometimes it occurs to me that the job of a serious cultural critic mostly consists in telling the generality of people that their opinions - on films, on books, on all manner of widgets, gadgets and even the latest electronic fidgets - simply aren't up to scratch.

Here we meet, on the page, naked and unadorned: shorn of class, race, gender, sexual identity, age and nationality.

So I was smacked up on the Prime Minister's jet – big deal.

I think it's a misreading of Dostoevsky to think of him as a programmatic theist. He's actually much closer to someone like William James. He's actually a pragmatist.

I have a healthy appetite for solitude. If you don't, you have no business being a writer.

Vaughn's vision is older, wiser and harder than Ritchie's.