“I sometimes think that London is the world’s largest catwalk of emperors. Perhaps it always was, but in the old days we weren’t afraid to shout out, ‘You’re naked, you silly arse. You’re stark bollock-nacked.’ Today you only have to fart in the presence of a dark-haired girl from the Sunday Times, whose father is either a sacked politician or a minor poet like myself, and you’ll be puffed and profiled as the new Thackeray.”

— Ted Wallace from The Hippopotamus by Stephen Fry