I wish I'd said that

"Step outside and say that, fat boy"

I dip into the Australian these days more in despair than hope, but this piece about writers going the knuckle on other writers rather amused me.

Especially this bit;

A new book of "literary invective" has brought together evidence of how writers really view other writers. It shows that some authors are at their most inventive and scabrous when sinking their teeth into other literary stars.

Take Jane Austen, one of the most revered and enduring English authors. Mark Twain, the American writer, was so irritated by Austen that he wrote in one letter: "Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin bone."

Quite.

Although oddly enough, it refers to Kathy Lette as a "novelist", instead of "geological outcropping", which is the correct term when talking about Kathy Lette.