WITH CLIVE JAMES
ILLUSTRATION BY ANDRÉ CARRILHO
Still recovering from an operation that has left me with what feels like a sofa stuffed into my left cheek while the eye above it, doing double duty, weeps for a world doomed to heat death, I contemplate existence with the poised detachment of the philosopher who has seen everything. He is especially likely to feel like this, I have discovered, when he can in fact see almost nothing. It’s been several years now since it happened, but the news has just reached me that a vast number of English people elected the robin as Britain’s national bird. The robin strikes me as appropriate for a hopping and tweeting national symbol in view of the upcoming Corbyn government, which is surely close upon us, now that the press, over the course of many months, has run out of different ways to say it will all happen tomorrow. The robin is small, tuneless and very short of convincing muscle power. The robinical attribute that I like best is the ability to hop about in my verdant back garden and still manage to draw attention to itself. How does it manage to be insignificant and conspicuous at the same time?
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July 2019
 
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