Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Why not make the children of the unemployed work, too?

I suppose I am past the point in life where, as Gore Vidal put it, litigation takes the place of sex.

I suppose I am past the point in life where, as Gore Vidal put it, litigation takes the place of sex. I have consulted lawyers at least 12 times so far this year, which easily exceeds the amount of times I have engaged in mutual sexual activity. Even on my birthday I rang a lawyer and did not have sex. As it happens sex was on offer, as a special treat — along with the cake with its 50 bloody candles, each one lit with malevolent glee by my wife — but I had somehow wrenched my knee out of joint and any form of movement caused excruciating pain and a sinister, strangely synthetic popping noise from within the wrecked joint. You cannot have sex under those conditions; you cannot have sex while hopping. Or at least you can, but only with a kangaroo. My suspicion is that it will be the same sort of story on Christmas Eve — which is the other time of the year I am allowed to have sex, along with Walpurgisnacht, provided I dress up. And Beltane, if it’s not too warm.

I realised this week that I am also past the point in life where I appreciate autumn. While once upon a time, with my silly head full of Ray Bradbury novels and Keatsian melancholy, I would be positively excited by the passing of summer and the new chill in the air and the whiff of decay, these days I lock myself inside with several copious beakerfuls of the warm south, shipped in by the crate from Oddbins. The whiff of decay is still around, though, no matter how tightly I bolt the windows. I am also infuriated by that autumn thing which I used to so enjoy, the copper-brown mounds of fallen leaves.

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