A S H Smyth

Red sky at night: shepherds’ delight. Green ammonia-filled acrid smoke-piss in the morning: asparagus for dinner.

When you explain to your girlfriend that your London degree is as good as mine from Oxford, I say nothing, and hope you both think I’m on your side.

– I think it’s going to be close! – It’s not going to be close. Either they’re going to win, or we are.

For the record: that page I’ve turned down – 102 – in the Alain de Botton paperback (the one with the Cambodian price sticker) is to mark the linguistic curiosity of the author’s ‘goo-goo gaga’ [inconsistent hyphenation of onomatopoeia]; not the stuff about Eric – the protagonist – and his alleged emotional coldness.

Don’t count your tachyons before they are