Words and Lines

This Product Carries a Health Warning

by Tris Kerslake

This stuff is dangerous and not for kids. Top-shelf brown-bag merchandise that shuffles an existence from suppliers through the middle men to you. Not always nice, it is no pot of basil; it has no complete name.

One taste of this and it can change your life. Do not imagine that its minor samples cannot work. They can. Insidious, it creeps inside until it rattles up your brain and halts your breath. You see the addicts as they roam the shabby shops.

How wisely the new world rejects its winsome way. The books and shelves seem empty even of a hint, and children mostly weaned without its song. Even its creators are obscure, Keats, Frost, Donne. And Mr Eliot. Villains all.