When I told [my father] that I was writing about nuclear weapons, he said, with a lilt, ‘Ah. I suppose you’re . . . “against them”, are you?’ épater les bien-pensants is his rule . . . I am reliably ruder to my father on the subject of nuclear weapons than on any other, ruder than I have been since my teenage years. I usually end by saying something like, ‘Well, we’ll just have to wait until you old bastards die off one by one.’ He usually ends by saying something like, ‘Think of it. Just by closing down the Arts Council we could significantly augment our arsenal. The grants to poets could
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