I don’t like Jane Austen.

Today, in the town centre, outside the old town hall building, they have set up lighting rigs. This is to illuminate the interior of the building through the windows so that interior shots can be lit as if by strong daylight.

Probably to make some period drama, most likely yet another remake of something Austenitic.

That’ll solve the world’s ills and offset global warming.

As a child, I was made to read “Pride and Prejudice” for school. I plodded through it and I hated it. I promised myself I would never read any more of her rubbish.

Even then, to my childish mind, it seemed pointless to devote a whole book to such a bunch of idle, boring, pointless people.

I recall something about a coach being brought round to ferry some vapid nonentity somewhere and wondering who the coachman was. What was his life like? Did he have a family? Did he have children? Where did  he live and what was he paid?

It seemed to me that his life and the lives of all the nameless servants and assorted peasants would probably be far more interesting.

Ms Austen seemed to be obsessed with the trivial minutiae of a pointless bunch of smug, self-obsessed middle-class unmentionables – today’s Cotswold Crew.

My opinion will not change and was confirmed by living in Bath for ten years – Mid-Janeland.