Often, I wonder what the late Christoper Hitchens would think of our desperate little rebellion against reality. The liberal lion of the nineties and noughties defended reason and sanity with a machete dipped in ink. In 2011, his death from oesophageal cancer robbed us of his rare insight and unmatched eloquence. With style and sabre, he skewered the first act of our tragicomedy.
To admit one has heroes is decidedly un-British. By its very nature, the mother of all parliaments spares precious seconds for adolescent pangs. We permit characters such as Hitchens. British English—English free of mistakes—defines a ‘character’ as an eccentric or outsider. From rarefied eyries, characters observe the mainstream. They pull off the wings of received opinion and pluck bare the fashionable and the false. Amongst modern sensibilities, satirists, comedians, and characters earn meagre affection. Our time is too serious and too fragile for too much truth. The living, breathing institution —the irreverent British character—is dying on its arse.
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