In the Widow's Hostel, I was taught harshly, once-and-for-all, the lesson of No Escape; now, seated hunched over paper in a pool of Anglepoised light, I no longer want to be anything except who I am. Who what am I? My answer: I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I've gone which would not have happened if I had not come. Nor am I particularly exceptional in this matter, each 'I', everyone of the now-six-hundred-million-plus of us, contains a similar multitude. I repeat for the last time: to understand me, you'll have to swallow a world.

Yesterday, on the 2nd of Dec, 2 months since I picked it up again, I finally concluded my 2nd reading of Salman Rushdie's epic, the 1993 Booker of Bookers - Midnight's Children. Magical, whimsical, absurd, sentimental political, historical, existentialist; everything all at the same time; turning the pages was generally a pleasure, although sometimes a pain. This is a book not to be gulped down, but to be read and reread again for the wonderful descriptions, the marvelous use of the English Language. What at 14, I could not comprehend, and so put down barely halfway through, 12 years on, I am finally able to appreciate what a magnificent piece of literature this is.