There's a very long, wonderfully written and fascinating profile of Ian McEwan in the current New Yorker (you have to register to read it online). The writer of the piece, Daniel Zalewski, was able to spend a lot of time with McEwan and get a real feel for the man, his extraordinary brain, and the rhythms of his life. He also had access to all McEwan's friends, and there are many rumbustious and funny interventions from Hitchens, Amis, Raine, et al (one of the amusing if uncomfortable things about the profile is that they all confide, independently of each other, that McEwan isn't actually a great novelist - men are such bitches...). Anyway, my favourite Amis remark from the piece is an aside, and not about McEwan at all, though it's made at McEwan's sixtieth birthday party:
"I'd like to have a Mutton Dressed As Lamb party. Everyone has to come in old clothing, haunting their old bodies."
What a brilliant idea.
