2 things: 1. It looks to me, from where I sit, that so much theory and philosophy and opinion and perspective has built up over the last 2,500 years - but particularly in the past 100, and especially in the last 40 or 20 - that I shall never be able to dig to the bottom of it and find anything. All I can obtain is a partial picture. Which is a lie, of course - I don't find anything in my reading, I just churn up and rearrange what has always been 'inside me'. (Though perhaps with some new bits...?)

2. This article by Zadie Smith on Franz Kafka and the novel is quite good. Rather amusing, too.

3. (it's on at the moment -) "Nothing Compares 2 u" is a glorious song - and part of this lies in the way the relationship is all there is in the singer's life. "I go out every night and sleep all day..." - note the lack of going to work, thinking of banal everyday, quotidian things - a relationship has eclipsed everything else. It's the Sex and the City view of the world - all personal. The utopia of ... well, everyone with to-work-and-home-again lives, which if you think about it, is probably almost everyone...

('2 things' turned into '3' when Sinead came on...)