Acknowledgements

For previous acknowledgements see The Truth about Babies (Granta Books, 2002), pp. 335–7. These stand. In addition I would like to thank the following. (The previous terms and conditions apply: some of them are dead; most of them are strangers; the famous are not friends; none of them bears any responsibility.) I am particularly grateful to The Enthusiast.

The Alabama 3, Janet and Allen Ahlberg, Mulk Raj Anand, Gerry Anderson, Aharon Appelfeld, Robert Alter, Diane Arbus, Louis Armstrong, Matthew Arnold, Roger Ascham, Clement Attlee, Erich Auerbach, Edward L. Ayers Jr, Ronnie Barker, Mel Bartholomew, Susan Wise Bauer, the Be Good Tanyas, Simon Russell Beale, Richard Beckinsale, Derek Bell, Hilaire Belloc, Arnold Bennett, Irving Berlin, Rodney Bewes, Lexy Bloom, Dirk Bogarde, Paul F. Boiler Jr, George Borrow, Louise Bourgeois, David Bowman, Myrtle Brown, Sir Thomas Browne, Kurt Brungardt, Gavin Bryars, Robert Burton, Aldo Buzzi, Café Brazilia, Abraham Cahan, Sandra Calder, Stephen Calder, Calexico, Betsy Cameron, David Cannadine, Frank Capra, Joe Carey, Anthony Caro, Harry Carpenter, Humphrey Carpenter, David Carradine, Jim Carrey, Alison Carson, Charlie Carson, Ciaran Carson, the Carter Family, Nick Cave, CBBC Scotland, Paul Celan, Anton Chekhov, G. K. Chesterton, Nick Clarke, George Clooney, J. M. Coetzee, Nik Cohn, Eddie Condon and his Band, Caroline Cooper, Mr and Mrs Cooper, Mrs Conville, Henry Cooper, Brendan Cormican, Ben Cove, Miles Coverdale, Jim Crace, Mr and Mrs Cromie, David Dabydeen, Nick Davies, Sara Davies, Les Dawson, Peter Day, Richard Deacon, Daniel Defoe, Iris DeMent, Govindas Vishnoodas Desani, John Dewey, Hugo Duncan, Dave Eggers, Barbara Ehrenreich, Ralph Ellison, Lucy Ellmann, D. J. Enright, The Enthusiast, Bill Evans, Gil Evans, Lee Evans, John Evelyn, Robert Faggen, Frantz Fanon, Ronald Firbank, Carol Fitzsimmons, Richard Flanagan, John Florio, Northrop Frye, Janice Galloway, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, Dr Gaston, Malcom Gladwell, Philip Glass, Brian Glover, Nikolai Gogol, Ray Gosling, Antonio Gramsci, Mark Gray, Anna Greene, Davey Greene, Jane Greene, Jenny Greene, Sophie Greene, Jane Greenwood, Alec Guinness, the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Reg Gutteridge, Christine Hall, Terry Hall, Sophie Harrison, Alethea Hayter, Hannah Henderson, Werner Herzog, Christopher Hitchens, Peter Hitchens, Eric Hobsbawm, David Hockney, Courtney Hodell, Min Hogg, A. M. Homes, Rachel Hooper, Irving Howe, Susan Howe, Victor Hugo, T. E. Hulme, Julian Humphries, Tilly Hunt, Kenneth T. Jackson, Kevin Jackson, C. L. R. James, Sid James, Skip James, Tove Jansson, Richard Jefferies, Justine Jordan, John B. Keane, Alice Kessler-Harris, Khaled, the Sir James Kilfedder Memorial Trust, Roy Kinnear, Victor Klemperer, Ivan Klima, Eric Korn, Karl Kraus, Kronos Quartet, Andrey Kurkov, Jean de La Fontaine, John Lahr, Le Corbusier, Kim Lenaghan, Daniel Libeskind, the staff of the Linenhall Library, Belfast, Professor Longhair, Edna Longley, Michael Longley, Robin Lustig, George McAuley, Peter McDonald, Robert MacFarlane, Rev. F. W. McGee, Liam McIlvanney, Cherrie McIlwaine, McKeown’s, James MacMillan, Dr McNutt, Ian McTear, Bernard Malamud, Neeraj Malhotra, Sir Thomas Malory, David Mamet, Greil Marcus, Marcel Mauss, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Jonathan Meades, Arthur Mee, Johnny Mercer, Billy Miskimmin, Trevor Miskimmin, Eugenio Montale, Eric Morecambe, William Morris, Grandma Moses, Frank Muir, Randy Newman, Michael Newton, Red Nichols, Lorine Niedecker, Catherine O’Dolan, Charles Olson, Peter Owen, Camille Paglia, Tom Paulin, Nicholas Pearson, Itzhak Perlman, Harold Pinter, Sadie Plant, Cole Porter, Robert Potts, Francis Poulenc, Philip Pullman, Gordon Ramsey, the Redskins, Dan Rhodes, Charlie Rich, Jonathon Richman, Richard Rorty, Jonathan Rose, Leonard Rossiter, Julian Rothenstein, Josiah Royce, John Ruskin, Mark Russell, Edward W. Said, Will Salmon, Sampson’s Cycles, Robert Sandall, Ted Sansom, Gerald Scarfe, András Schiff, Ben Schott, Kurt Schwitters, David Sedaris, Richard Sennett, Doctor Seuss, John Seymour, Shakira, Verity Sharp, Carol Shields, Sho’Nuff Records, Roger Scruton, Aura Sibisan, Mike Skinner, Christopher Smart, Smylie’s Sectional Buildings, Sharon Smith, Stevie Smith, Muggsy Spanier, the Specials, Johnny Speight, Francis Spufford, Graham Swift, Jonathan Swift, Jeremy Taylor, Tesco.com (Knocknagoney), Edward Thomas, Irene Thomas, Rosie Thomas, Rosie Thornton, Peter Townend, Louise Tucker, William Tyndale, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Geza Vermes, Gina Vitelli, David Wardle, Steve Wasserman, Evelyn Waugh, Tim Westwood, David Wheatley, E. B. White, Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, David Widgery, Norman Wisdom, Ernie Wise, P. G. Wodehouse, Stevie Wonder, Usa Yardley, Rafi Zabor, Israel Zangwill, Slavoj zizek.