Liberal British culture’s thirst to be deliciously scandalised by risible provocations from literature’s lion remains unquenchable. Obedient outrage, then fatuous ‘debate’ trots along after like a little doggie, as absurd as convening a moral tribunal when a 5-year-old shouts ‘Bum poo willy!’

Comparisons, though. What will the old be like? The old will be ‘like an invasion of terrible immigrants, stinking out the restaurants’. Oh you know. What will the result be? ‘I can imagine a sort of civil war’. What else?

Little impulses. As if the target domain of that simile is the target. As if the source domain is just the source. Fumbling around to diss, whatever, the old, right, one innocently deploys:

• immigrant = stinking = terrible = invasion = war

Quick, run at the red rag! Get that red rag! Don’t worry about that sword in his other hand!