When the light stops shining out of an author's bum, how many publishers does it take to reach in and change the bulb?

Today in a fit of literate thinking I visited the Oxfam bookshop. Yes I browsed the classics. Yes I even opened a few, read a few lines, then put them back. The thing I've discovered about the 'classics' is that they tend to have a lot of words, mostly in a very small font, clustered together in paragraph-long sentences, which are then organised into page-long paragraphs. Obviously the intention is to send us all blind and mad. I refuse to participate in this lemmingness.

Instead I bought 'Too True' by Blake Morrison. According to the front cover Blake is 'One of our most sensitive and stylish writers'. Or so says the Sunday Times. But we're not supposed to judge a book by it's cover, are we?

I've only got as far as page 16, but there are already some interesting quotes. I give you an example:

'Without art, confessionalism is masturbation. Only with art does it become empathy.'

Hmm...well that's nice dear. Anyone for another jelly baby?

A friend and I have been discussing the difficulties of commenting on other classmembers' poetry. I mean what does one say, when one hardly knows the poet, and one is instructed to comment on the blood-and-tears-sweated-over-very-precious poem. Really, when a person's entire future mental wellbeing depends on your delicate choice of words, what does one say?

'Nice words,' my friend helpfully suggested.

Yes, 'nice words'. I think I'll have that on my epitaph.