Yep, we're all fictional and as the great Flann O'Brien remarked "Evil is even, truth is an odd number and death is a full stop."

As regards Tone, a caveat. I have recently been reading his journals and his dislike of Americans is a bit on the extreme side. When they were originally published they had to be edited to avoid offending our friends across the Atlantic. And he had never even heard of the Bush family!

I'm beginning to realise what the term "thread creep" means. And I like it.