“Whatever happened to manifestos? There was a time, 100 years ago, when you couldn’t open a paper without seeing a litany of avant-garde statements, or a crazily idealistic declaration of political attitudes, or a sternly numbered list of arty Dos and Donts, as portentous as the Ten Commandments. Writers, poets, sculptors, artists and freelance visionaries would meet at the Eiffel Tower restaurant or stay up all night in bordellos, thrashing out their stroppy jeremiads like kidnappers writing ransom notes. They may have been a few elephants short of the full zoo, but by God they were passionate.”

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