Some say that Cusk has no sense of humour, but expecting giggles from this writer would be akin to expecting sonnets from Benny Hill.

Fact is, famous people say fame stinks because they love it so - like a secret restaurant or holiday island they don't want the hoi polloi to get their grubby paws on.

He watched Benny Hill all the time. All day long I'd come over and he would be playing Benny Hill and now he has a chance to meet him in heaven.

Families, generally, suck. And I say that as someone who, like my husband, had parents who proved the proverbial exception to the rule.

Graham Greene famously said that all writers need a chip of ice in their heart; Cusk can come across as the most beautiful ice palace of stalactites and stalagmites, and some people find her company, albeit by proxy, about as inviting as a long weekend in a walk-in frigidaire.

Grooming oneself with all the crazed compulsion of an under-exercised lab rat in order to hook a rich man and obtain a lush lifestyle makes a certain (albeit seedy) sense.