Re: And this makes you feel superior?

Why, no. Really, b_t, you're "reading" far too much into this. What you call my "club" is indeed small, measured against, say, the fanbase for professional football (it's been suggested that the American audience for "serious" literature could fit handily into a modern stadium—not, it is to be hoped, in the seats normally unoccupied in the course of a regular season game), but I neither described it nor regard it as "elite"; nor for that matter did did I call you or do I consider you a "Philistine." These are all assumptions you brought to the party. The boxter had no difficulty in identifying the intent of my original post and followups:

stated clearly that he knows the custom types upclose and personal and got a giggle over the Sgt Friday types dealing with an artist.

I don't fault the inspectors, or any average citizen, for not knowing McEwan from McKuen—for my own part I know the former largely from book reviews, having read just one of his novels—whereas I do find their apparent lack of awareness that "novel" is a more specific term than "book" richly comic, and thought to share it with my droogies here. Reasonable men may reasonably disagree on the conduct of our doughty border guards in this instance, but I find ben_tilly's caricature of my motives here moderately offensive.

cordially,

[edit: typo]

And in part to the outrage at a fairly innocuous event.

First of all are we agreed that if you're going to a country on a tourist visa, you need to convince the guard that you're a tourist? If you want to convince the guard of anything else, you need to have the appropriate visa. Any experienced traveller should know this.

Now on to laughing at the guard.

It is reasonable for the guard not to know that novels are typically fiction. I've encountered many cases where intelligent, well-educated people have drawn blanks on things that should be common knowledge. (One case that comes to mind involved which continent the Alps are on.) The fact is that it happens, and I've come to react with sympathy, not distain. I've also come to have distaste for people whose first reaction is to make the situation worse by putting down the unfortunate.

Perhaps my attitude is due to awareness of the fact that I'm often in the corresponding position when I draw blanks on things that really are common knowledge, such as current ads or popular TV shows.

What goes around, comes around, and all that.

Ben

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