Giving offence has become an unfashionable sport, but Kingsley Amis belongs in its hall of fame, one of the all-time greats. When Roger Micheldene, the central character in his 1963 novel, One Fat Englishman, is warned that he's about to say something he'll be sorry for, he replies, 'those are the only things I really enjoy saying' - and there isn't much sign that Micheldene or his creator did feel sorry afterwards. The Cambridge historian Maurice Cowling, who overlapped with Amis's circle in the early 1960s when Amis was in his pomp, spoke of their having 'a doctrine about being rude', a topic on which Cowling spoke with some authority. One of the phrases that crops up most often in recollections of Amis's social manner is 'fuck off!', or, as he responded when somebody once had the courage to reproach him for his selfish behaviour: 'Fuck off. No, fuck off a lot.'

LRB 14 December 2006 | PDF Download