Perhaps it’s only scale. In the 70s the writers lived in Islington; now they’re in Stoke Newington. Maybe in 10 years’ time, being a writer will mean having a Stevenage address and a longer journey to your publisher.

The other problem an aspiring creator faces is there’s already too much culture, too readily available. Since my first novel was published in 1992, there are millions more novels, literally tens of millions more books in existence, hanging around, taking up space in shops, in libraries, on shelves, on train seats, as competition.

Never mind the canon: I have to compete not only with Jane Austen, Dostoyevsky et al. but hundreds of thousands of still scribbling novelists from around the world. How many books can anyone read? When I bought “Tubular Bells” or “Never Mind the Bollocks” or “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts”, one of the reasons I bought those albums was that there had never been anything like them before. A new culture was being created. There are no longer albums, but genres. Any kid now can get hold of months of listening, of any genre, with a few clicks.

Not only are there unmanageable amounts of culture, but no one has to buy it any more. I suspect that the only purchasers of DVDs, CDs or magazines are those who haven’t yet figured out how to download them illegally (ie, a shrinking demographic) or people who need to buy someone a present. There will never be death for the novel, for poetry, for music, for theatre, for Morris dancing, but there will be less space for some of them. Every generation needs its pin-ups and chroniclers, workers with words and sounds. But if I were 11 now, I’d be dreaming about computer games. Because that will be the great art form of the 21st century. Maybe the Michelangelo of the PlayStation is out there somewhere in London, getting ready, getting telluric, dreaming of being hunted down by ladies from St Petersburg.