It is a truth universally acknowledged that any newspaper containing an article beginning “it is a truth universally acknowledged” should be hurled across the room and stamped on, immediately, without reading another line, then burned, the ashes flushed down the loo, one’s subscription canceled, a furious letter written to the editor and the relevant newspaper building marched on with pitchforks, gasoline and matches.
Well, why are you still here? I wouldn’t be. I wouldn’t have got halfway through “univer-” before pulling my eyes out and boiling them in bleach. Yes, sure, this is me writing, and you might have been tempted to think, “Giles must, surely, have a very good reason for rolling out this most hackneyed of quotes that is employed to head up literally every single news item or feature article that has even the most tangential relationship to Jane Austen, and even ones that don’t, by idiots who — ”
