CURMUDGEON

From Simon Hoggart's unfailingly entertaining column in the Guardian on Saturday:

My favourite letter this year comes from quite a well-known biographer, who would probably be happy for me to print his name, but I have a strict rule about that. Anyhow, his four-page letter is monumentally, magnificently dyspeptic, from the first line: "Another spirit-crushing year. Criminally underpaid and underemployed, derided by the critics, betrayed by friends, disrespected and humiliated - the usual stuff."

He soon cheers up at a Francis Bacon exhibition.

"What a useless painter Bacon was. He had one idea - to paint people inside out ... the slaughterhouse screams are adolescent."

He is utterly unmoved by Live8 and Bob Geldof. "As regards food shortages, you try getting a fresh lemon in the Co-op on a Sunday night when all that matters is a gin and tonic. In giving my donation I will just ask for the Swiss bank accounts of the African prime ministers. This will save on postage ..." But this cheery mood soon evaporates when he goes to his son's girlfriend's 18th birthday party.

"I nearly had a heart attack when, on going up to the bar, and asking for a large red wine, the barman said: 'That'll be £4.95.' This was a new experience for me, paying for drinks at a private party ..."