Little

One of the recurring Xtin-themes is Francis Cornford's famous lines for Rupert Brooke, 'Magnificently unprepared/ For the long littleness of life'.

I am astonishingly, terrifyingly, world-beatingly well-prepared for the long littleness of life. Littleness is my metier, and decades pass in it in the damp, fragrant snap of the sheets out of the washing machine.

I've no doubt this is a kind of victory. But it is also not.