BLIGHTED KINGDOM: 'What I note in the entire unhappy kingdom is a lack of genius. There are minor talents in the arts, the organs of publicity, even government. But there is no sense of the great sweeping wind of inspiration. It’s a philistine country. The only country in the world where a man of letters is actively looked down on; where it is a matter of pride that the Royal Family love only horses. The great democratic mess. One of the reasons I left England was that I didn’t want to be associated with the British school of literature and its small-minded themes. There was a new laxness about. I did not like this hedonistic Britain. Multi-racial and multi-religious, this country has not learned to come to terms with its new mixed condition. The church and the synagogue may join in harmony, but the mosque is alien, external, centrifugal. Judæo-Christianity and Islam must always fail to cohere. Britain’s shame is best shown in beleaguered Salman Rushdie, in the face of whose predicament government is hypocritical. This country used to be one in which free thought flourished and original genius was applauded. No longer. Mary Quant O.B.E. invented the miniskirt, which really consists of showing more leg. It’s something we’ve always wanted; and she, probably through insensitivity, was able to push it through and was surprised at the response because she wasn’t sensitive enough to expect a response. These are not major achievements. The major achievements of a race are great architecture, great music, great literature. These are not coming out of England. The mess of England, all television, fornication and a rising generation given to rock music and violence. The England I like is the England I carry in my skull, the England of the past, not the decaying land of today.'