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Very outspoken ... against religion ... Yep. Check, check. His new book dispenses with all the surrounding stuff and gets down to his hobby horse. It's called The God Delusion, which is all you need to know. I'm about to start reading it.

...Or maybe it's part of Rupert Murdoch's (owner of HarperCollins) latest brown-nosing initiative to ingratiate himself and his companies with the Chinese authorities - like when he cancelled HarperCollins's publication of Hong Kong governor Chris Patten's memoir East & West as it contained...

It doesn't, but it puts it in a broader context, which is always worthwhile. Some people Bush would prefer we have short memories and are unable to put things in context. Well I did try to... (And as for controlling the direction of the thread, don't forget that the above is your own...

I would pronounce Herman Wouk's surname as "Wook." But I could so easily be wrong.

You're absolutely right, Wolf. But then you haven't been writing any innovative literature, so what's that got to do with it? The insults above are all against your work, which is terrible, awful, barrel-scraping crap of the lowest subterranean type - so I guess it is personal in a way. Come...

Nurse! Mr Larsen's medication has run out again! And by the 'copyright' bit protects anyone from copying your work and passing it off as their own. No danger there, chum...p.

Dear Venus, If what they say is true, and my country is dying, I think I may be able to tell them why. - Martin Amis, House of Meetings

I had never heard of Hirsi Ali before reading this link so all I know about her is contained within that article by George Will. But even on its own terms, he doesn't justify the extract above. "The recoil of many Dutch people"? The only evidence he provides is that (some? a few? all?)...

Apologies in advance for poor taste...

Are you calling Martin Amis popular? Now I am offended! :mad:

Yes and no. Although there are plenty of nutjobs who will do the things you talk about, or rather a few who will do it and plenty who will threaten it (the complete destruction of Western civilisation in favour of an Islamic world under Sharia law), that doesn't really seem to be the 'official'...

To quote Stephen Fry: "So you're offended? So fucking what?" There is no fundamental right not to be offended. Some people are offended very easily, and indeed a few seem to go out of their way to be offended, particularly by things they haven't seen and that weren't aimed at them. (eg...

Hm, this and the last one could be repeated ad infinitum...

("Oil fields burn in Kuwait in 1991 after being set alight by retreating Iraqi forces")

An upturn in the membership! You've got 6,300 already! Incidentally, on Palimpsest we occasionally go through and weed out any obvious spambot members who have joined (or those who never validated their membership etc). Might be a big task for this size of membership though.

Ahum...

Yes, mine was bought used on Amazon and is the silver-spined edition but it has these bizarre self-adhesive clear plastic 'pockets' stuck to the back cover (and inside back cover) which can't be removed without tearing the cover. I'd love to get a nice unblemished one but this will have to do...

No. This alone is enough to sell it to you: ;)

I think there's a link for "View results" at the bottom of the poll, isn't there, abc? I can't see it now because I've voted (it's 2 for St Aubyn and 0 for everyone else so far, btw!) but I think that's how it usually works in these polls...?

Bye, Wabbit! And thanks for suggesting that everyone who has congratulated Stewart on his appointment is not a good person.