I'm fifty-something. Which is better than the alternative. I live in London. I'm a parent. My culture is that of an English lapsed Catholic, overlaid with classical paganism. I used to collect modern first editions. (And guitars, and I suppose, amplifiers.) In a former life I wrote (unpublished novel and some published Poetry and criticism) occasionally. I lived the best part of half-a-century without responsibility: I was a perfect drone, of little use to anyone excepting as a gene-carrier for the right sort of girl. Therefore, being naturally perverse, I entered fatherhood for the first time approaching fifty.