The allure of fine writing is, for me at least, the fact that it is transportable, either as a self contained excerpt, good for all weathers, or that it can be used to describe something other than it's original.

Coming out as an example of the latter, is this wonderful snatch I filched from an Observer interview with Jonathan Lethem: " What the reality of New York is this....(an)...overwhelming chaos of lives that are parallel but not touching".

That's London, Berlin, Paris, Buenos Aires, Cairo, Tokyo, every megalopolis, beehive city, where we know our neighbours only by the colour of their front door, or cooking odours.