In the December edition of New English Review we find the good doctor recounting his visit to the southern English port town of Portsmouth. While there, Theodore Dalrymple ruminates on modern architecture, the regrettable spread of tattooing, culinary multiculturalism, and bibliophilia.

A stroll in Southsea tells you quite a lot about modern society, or at least a part of modern society. The fact is that for a considerable distance down its main street, it is easier to get yourself mutilated, either by tattoo or by piercing, than to buy a tomato. Fresh food, it seems, is scarcely ever bought by the people of Southsea, probably students living in shared rented houses.