I remember quite a few years ago writing a sentence about some people smoking, saying they were holding onto themselves at the cigarette end lest they give folly a vent. Quite a pompous line but it was meant to express the way people need a prop. They always have done. In the Wild West a man had his gun and today we hold onto ourselves at the smart phone end or else at the ipod end. It is difficult not to have some pap or other. I manage to avoid the smart phone gesture, mostly because I don’t have a smart phone, but have a history of nail-biting and knuckle gnawing. I’m human; I need some succour. Get rid of that and I’ll be zen. Though there’ll still be those itches that need countering; nostril itches; bottom itches; wick of the eye itches. The itch is there to keep us humble.

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