Craig Brown

“another of their acquaintances finds himself mesmerised by the way that he 'always had something of ... rivetting stupidity to say on any subject'.”

“I [Christopher Hitchens] moved into Mart's sock—where you lived was your 'sock.' Your rug was your 'hair.' Your knee was still your knee: we couldn't think of another word for it. We called our penises our 'willie winkies' and our shared lavatory 'the bog.' There were a lot of brilliantly inventive word games of that kind. What if you changed 'heart' to 'dick' in any well-known song or phrase? Bury my dick at Wounded Knee. Dick-break Hotel. Don't go breaking my dick ... They may, in retrospect, seem infantile, but they built intellectual muscle and taught us all we knew about philosophy, psychology, and other -ologies too numerous (and humorous!) to mention. It was at the time of the wholly reprehensible bombing of Cambodia. These dazzling jests were part of the reason why, when Mart and I got together, nobody felt able to leave the room, or sock-toe. A glimpse, if you will, of another era, a time when Mr. Wilde had sparred so felicitously with Mr. Whistler across their effortlessly groaning table at the imperious Cafe Royal.”

“Without anything being said, there were no women at our lunches. Not that we were talking pussy. Or not much. But it was a chaps thing. Seasoned observers all, we set the world, such as it was, to rights, offsetting our intellectual know-how with truly wondrous flights of fancy. It was at the time of the ruinous yet avoidable civil war in Angola, in which far too many people died, or, in our immortal parlance, became 'deadified.' It might have been anyone—actually, I [Christopher Hitchens] am sure it was our poet friend Craig Raine—who came up with the appalling yet unforgettable idea that there is a design flaw in the female form, and that the breasts and the buttocks really ought to be on the same side. For myself, I have oft been perplexed as to why our heads are where, in a truly just world, our penises really ought to be, and my arse is not located between my chin and my nose, allowing me mellifluously to talk out of it.”

“One evening, at the time of the Six-Day War, I [Christopher Hitchens] had my wicked way with a lovely lady, who had earlier intimated that she did not perhaps find me entirely repulsive. We procured a decent room, as I remember, at the Cadogan Hotel. Perhaps a little flown with wine, I asked her to don a Martin Amis face mask which I had—with a combination of sticky tape, elastic bands, cardboard, and a much-treasured photograph—prepared earlier. The fair damsel was happy to oblige, and thus attired she permitted me to embark on the hugely agreeable pathway to libidinous fulfillment.”