Slight interruption to the daily service there due to Heads Up Festival duties for E52. We were at Freedom this weekend, with Heads Up shows Ballad of the Burning Star (by Theatre Ad Infinitum), The Incredible Book… 

It was weird. I hit my mid 40s and suddenly, out of nowhere, I discovered a new way of wiping my ass. A more efficient way. And I got to thinking, what took me? This… 

“Of course all life is a process of breaking down, but the blows that do the dramatic side of the work – the big sudden blows that come, or seem to come, from outside –… 

“I saw that for a long time I had not liked people and things, but only followed the rickety old pretense of liking. I saw that even my love for those closest to me had… 

“This is what I think now: that the natural state of the sentient adult is a qualified unhappiness. I think also that in an adult the desire to be finer in grain that you are,… 

“It isn’t only narcissistic. There is also something courageous and generous in writing about your alcoholism or your failed relationships. I felt that in some ways my novels lacked heart because of the distance between… 

“E. M. Forster’s idea has always stuck with me—that a writer who’s fully in control of the characters hasn’t even started to do the work. I’ve never had any direct fictional input, that I know… 

“Tell the truth about human beings and the world they live in. Stick to the present. The here and now. That’s where the magic is. “I always knew that, if I were to create legends,… 

“I suppose I think of the notebook as a house for words, as a secret place for thought and self-examination. I’m not just interested in the results of writing, but in the process, the act… 

An interesting turn of events yesterday re Oliver Hotham’s run-in with the imbecilic Straight Pride UK. They changed their twitter account name to @prideofstraight and, in an odd move for a bunch claiming to be…