If only Uncle Oswald had had a twist—or, better still, a knot—in his member, we might have been spared many of Roald Dahl's descriptions of its size, colour, pulse and agility. As matters are, it is for ever standing up to be counted. It is brave of Mr Dahl to have written a novel with a totally dislikeable hero, but I suspect that this was not his intention; Uncle Oswald's only admirer may be his creator, as if God had started off with Father Rolfe. I don't believe that many women will read far into the novel, since Mr Dahl divides all their sex into four kinds—elderly sex-starved battle axes, athletic nymphomaniacs, dumb beauties, or janes who are so plain as to be physically repulsive. 'Thicknecked', 'long-snouted', 'seldom washed', 'crocodiles'—that's just the girls of Girton in 1919.

So OK—Swift. It's not OK. It's not...