‘tramp angst’. It bears little or no relation to one’s actual financial situation, but instead describes an often irrational fear of penury. Hitchens did not suffer from it, but the considerably wealthier Amis apparently does. My dad didn’t suffer from it, but I do. For most of my early twenties, when I was trying and mostly failing to get a foot in the door of Fleet Street, I could lie awake at night for hours terrified of unspecified failure. My ambition was considerable but it was built more, I realise now, on dreams of security rather than status.
