Five Pages Hard

Is there a reader anywhere whose heart soars when they see that the paragraph they've just embarked on is going to carry on for several pages? I doubt it. But does this stop ambitious writers (Pynchon for instance) from indulging themselves in these textual mini-marathons? Of course not. The long long paragraph is proof of artistic integrity and a refusal to pander to the reader's frailty. "Keep up, you horrible little people," says the writer. "No slacking. Did you think reading my books would be easy. Well, think again. If I can keep going for five pages without a break then so can you. You want the aesthetic experience only I can deliver? Well, you're going to have to prove yourselves worthy of it...."

Jumpy

The mood around the royal funeral is jumpy. People expressing anti-royalist sentiments in public are taking a risk. A man who loudly asked "Who elected him?" at the proclamation of Charles III in Edinburgh was arrested. Another man who shouted "You're a sick old man," at Prince Andrew as he shuffled by in the wake of the coffin was assaulted by members of the public and then arrested- while his assailants got off scot free. Security around the rituals is costing an arm and a leg. When the New York Times reported that the British tax-payer is paying for it all (an incontrovertible fact) readers cancelled their subscriptions and accused it of snark.