Crimes against the English language

Crimes against the English language
And failures to play by the book
Repel the girls out of whom
I will ever fancy the fuck

Jeanette Winterson and Hilary Mantel as Keywords

I picture Jeanette Winterson, ruddy-faced, sat at her 200-year-old oak kitchen table, in front of her Aga, squinting in an expression of studied, strained optimism and saying: 'No, for me, I simply can't write if I can hear music playing. I really do need absolute silence. Music, or any sound really, would rob me of the concentration I need to coax the words out, to free the words from the dark prison of my mind, and bring them to the saving light of the page.'

I imagine Hilary Mantel sat bolt upright in her Chesterfield armchair staring at me with wild wide eyes that dim, almost imperceptibly, over a period of about a quarter of an hour, from fearful alertness to profound pity. Then she says:
'What is it you want?'
I say:
'What you have.'
She replies:
'You don't know anything about what I have or don't have. You're full of nonsense. And how did you get into my caaaastle anyway, my moooooated caaaastle in the Hiiiiighlands, whose doors and windows  are aaaaallllway firmly locked? Even the portcullis is down, and the croooocodiles are as hungry and alert as they have ever beeeeen...'

Weed and Wine

When I consider what I need        
While clamouring voices rise              
To see a bulging bag of weed    
And bottles full of wine            
Makes me feel rich                    
A fleet sensation which                  
Turns too quickly saturnine