Taxonomies

Remember Dewey? The man who classified books in a meaningful way? (Because all taxonomies are meaningful.) Well… Browsing in the Wolverhampton branch of W.H. Smiths today, I noticed that the Biography section has a subsection entitled Tragic Life Stories - occupying, incidentally, slightly more than half of the section, for without tragedy we are nothing.

And there, among the various descendants of Angela’s Ashes, from Peltzer to whoever that man was who lied to Oprah and was subsequently execrated (A Thousand Pieces of Something? I honestly can’t remember), what did I find? David Blunkett (ex-Home Secretary) and Victoria Beckham (ex-Spice Girl).

What a fragile thing happiness is.