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I wish George Eliot or Alan Bennett had been with me in the Ryanair check-in queue

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From: The Spectator
Date: 20080524
Author:PARRIS, MATTHEW

'I'll tell you, Janet, if I was 23 an' 'ad a nice, good-lookin' young man, I'd not be here on 'oliday with you. Don't get me wrong -- it's been a lovely holiday -- but let's be honest. If I was your age and 'ad the chance, I'd be walkin' along the beach, alone with my young man.' I often wish I were Alan Bennett -- or at least that I had his talent for overhearing real English spoken by real people, then stitching together what he has remembered into sustained prose, with weight, shape and a story. George Eliot, too, whose verbatim English rural conversations in Silas Marner are small ...

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