My oh my. The warmth, love, comfort,mercy, and compassion of "believers" is never so lacking as when they're confronted with a "non-believer". The truth is that neither of us won't know for sure where we'll end up until we do.

Three of the best English writers, of the 1980's and 90's, on screen here.

yes, thank you!

my 5 fave authors, i want to be their friend, too!

nice show

YOU'RE Very welcome, friend!

James Fenton ALWAYS looks like he's sleeping, it's great. He was the same way at the Remebering Christopher event that Stephen Fry hosted.

one of the smartest primates to ever walk and talk on planet earth.... only three horsemen left... I nominate Lauwrence Krauss to fill the shoes along side Dawkins, Harris and the great philosopher Dennett

I was asking you to explain your previous comment.

I don't take any words as gospel. Coetzee still acknowledges his influences. To me he's wiser than Amis - and more, he's a better artist/writer. He's so dry he's funny. He still says Beckett is an influence, but he doesn't go on about SB in the cloying way of Amis going on about Bellow/Nab. Coetzee is now a Master. Amis is still his father's son. He has two fathers as well. KA and SB. Sounds flippant - but such is spontaneous replies on KZfaq :)

i want to be their friend

yes, but he does it from a distance - or appears to - his hands stay clean. JM Coetzee once said a writer who still goes on about his influences (after a certain age) is suspect.

what do you make of his comments on the american holocaust (something along the lines of how he celebrates it with 'great vim and gusto)?

Can you rewrite that so that I can understand it?

He didn't advocate the war because of weapons of mass destruction, it was for the removal of Saddam Hussein and the emancipation of the Iraqi people.

ouch, who got left out?

I'm sure it wasn't difficult for Hitchens to improve his writing once he came to the States. There's so much pseudo-intellectual drivel that passes for great writing here. I'm sure he realized he was a better writer than most American writers and just needed to apply himself, which he did beautifully.

i didn't have him down as a racist. but then i did read the he said he celebrated the american holocaust with 'great vim and gusto'.

youre right about all evil religions, chris, there is no heaven or hell...but there is a ressurrection, so we will see you again

Rubbish! I didn't agree with his support of this senseless war on Iraq and the non-existent WMD's,but there's no way he's smiling from a non-existent "Hell" either. He was spot on in his rebuke of religion and its practitioners. He didn't give a toss about dogma and stupid orthodoxy and the man was brave to express truth and reality so well.

you people have not read orwell....

'black lives'?

Henry Kissinger doesn't like this.

I know what you mean - was a lazy remark from me - I've read Money and it's hilarious. But Amis tries too hard to be Bellow - (I've met Amis once btw) - He annoys me when he derides Beckett for not being comic - which is pathetic. He also called JM Coetzee 'talentless', another comment that is immature. Unlike my faves, Joyce, Celine, Pinter, - these guys don't seem to have explored the underbelly - Amis tries to write in slang, but it sounds fake to me. Whereas Cormac McCarthy . . .

Very amusing. Stay off atheist web-sites if you get upset with reality.

dunno to be honest - rushdie and hitchens are more interesting then amis and i've not read fenton - none of them are great-great though - something too upper-middle class about them.

does anybody herr believe he was right ti support the war in iraq and continue to support it after the evidence proved false?