i'm not as pessimistic as howard jacobson sounds about it.ve you tried? no, because i'm as addicted as anybody. apart from anything else, i find the internet and incredible information source and social resource. i like being in dialogue with my readers on twitter and that kind of thing. it's become a very important part of my working life in my career. you don't feel it is sucking up creative energies you otherwise might have employed writing 3,000 words of the next novel? don't think so. this is a word novel i wrote in ten months and i was on twitter the whole time. qed, i rest my case. a final thought for you and we've talked a lot about your own identity and your rootedness. you have won a lot of prizes outside of britain, more so than in britain and you have a loyal audience but you seem to have a certain amount of self—hate for the writer's life. benjamin trotter, one of your most famous characters, is an absurd figure in a way. the whole world of literary festival and literary prizes, you mock it mercilessly. are you sick of being a wr