Age: 61.
Appearance: a food critic who has just taken a sip of corked wine.
It's true! Whenever I see a picture of him I think: what smells? London, perhaps. "One can have the impression that life in London is pretty pleasant," he recently said, "but all is rotten inside."
He needs to check his drains. Or move house.
That Martin Amis – I never know whether he's coming or going. He's going this time; moving back to the United States. For family reasons, apparently.
Has anyone thought to debrief him about life in Britain before he goes? Yes. He's done an interview with Le Nouvel Observateur all about it.
Did he mention that the food is getting better? Not in so many words. But he called the royal family "philistines" and insisted he would turn down a knighthood. "Really, I would prefer not to be English," he said.
Oh, how awful. More please. In today's Britain, he said, "You can have no talent, no ambition, and you win all the same . . . Celebrity is the new religion."
He's a funny guy. Didn't he used to be a writer or something? Actually he's got a new book coming out – State of England, which he calls "the final insult".
What's it about? It's the story of a criminal, Lionel Asbo, who wins the lottery. Amis described it as a "metaphor which translates well, I think, our state of moral decrepitude: a huge reward for no effort."
It has a happy ending at least. "It's a book about the rage, the dissatisfaction, the bitterness, all unconscious, caused by this decline," he continued.
I sort of feel like I've read it now. So – he despairs of superficiality, celebrity culture, philistinism and moral decrepitude. Correct.
And he's moving to America to get away from all that. Well, they do it properly there. And the margaritas are better.
Do say: "If you can't say anything nice, you shouldn't say anything at all."
Don't say: "Shut it, you grouchy little toad."
