Some years ago I went to see the coroner at St Pancras. It was a bright afternoon, and daylight poured in from the old graveyard, a place that, in those days, had no very profound connection with the mainland of Europe, unless you consider the graves of Mary Shelley's parents (now removed) to summon the connection between France and England more congenially than the Eurotunnel. The coroner looked at me and said: 'You wouldn't want to panic, but people are dying in increasingly violent ways. Especially men. Men today are subject to a great number of potentially sorry ends.'

LRB 13 December 2007 | PDF Download