Mayhap, dear Peter, there is something in the architecture ofbastards that we are not seeing clearly. I have an image (handed me by my Ma) of Dylan Thomas reeling drunkenly in a New York bar, a hard-drinking and sometimes abusinve man. Never a sweeter bard, for all that.

What lurks in the hearts of these men and women that their public voices and their personal actions seem so disparate and at arms with each other?