Cut-price shaman speaking in voices...

More favourite bits from J.G. Ballard's autobiography. In the 1960s, Ballard was editor of Ambit, a London literary magazine of sorts. But Ballard wanted less poetry in the mag and more science.

Poetry readings, writes Ballard, , "...were a special form of social deprivation.In some rather dingy hall a sad little cult would listen to their cut-price shaman speaking in voices, feel their emotions vaguely stirred and drift away to a darkened tube station."

Which is just so perfect and grim and English.