Just a tad late

If (like me) you found it hard to find your round tuit (as my Dad used to call it) to read Harold Pinter's Nobel Prize acceptance speech do it now. It's beautifully well written, and powerful. Here's just an example:

Direct invasion of a sovereign state has never in fact been America's favoured method. In the main, it has preferred what it has described as "low intensity conflict." Low intensity conflict means that thousands of people die but slower than if you dropped a bomb on them in one fell swoop. It means that you infect the heart of the country, that you establish a malignant growth and watch the gangrene bloom. When the populace has been subdued--or beaten to death, the same thing--and your own friends, the military and the great corporations, sit comfortably in power, you go before the camera and say that democracy has prevailed. This was a commonplace in US foreign policy in the years to which I refer.

But don't be satisfied with an extract - go read the whole thing.