A curmudgeon? I think not.

Three years ago I renewed my passport. This was a blessed relief. My previous passport photograph showed me with a full(ish) head of hair, something I've not had for a number of years, and made me a target for comedy double-takes at border control on the rare occasions that we went abroad. In the time since my previous passport was issued photobooth technology has advanced and, when the time came to renew, I was able to reject images until I got the effect I wanted. In the chosen picture I'm leaning very slightly towards the camera, stony-faced and perhaps a tiny bit menacing. I think I look manly, mysterious, somebody to be taken seriously. My wife and children think I look like a thug, a terrorist, a comedy bad guy. The picture gives no hint of my warm and cuddly side.

My reason for telling you this is that yesterday I went to the Martin Harris Centre at Manchester University to hear Martin Amis talk about literature and violence. He was joined by Blake Morrison and John Gray. I've read a couple of Blake Morrison's books and I'm currently reading John Gray's Straw Dogs, so the opportunity to hear the two of them talk was what attracted me to the event. Amis, on the other hand, was somebody I felt an antipathy towards, based on the maelstrom of controversy that seems to follow his every utterance and, more unreasonably, on the scowl that he always seems to have on his face in photographs.

Do you see what I mean? He looks all moody, middle-aged attitude and
I find myself wanting to give him a slap. So. Literature, violence, Martin-bloody-Amis and his superior, brooding up-yours attitude. I was ready for a full-on rant. 

In fact, in person Professor Amis was warm, thoughtful, considerate and vulnerable. There was nothing macho in the way that he and his fellow panelists considered and analysed violence and the way that it is portrayed. They were stimulating, thought provoking and deeply moral. I came away with a list of books that I wanted to read, films that I wanted to see, and a reminder to myself of the power, and limitations, of the photographic image.