g.g.: So you do feel, in effect, that the critic represents a morally endangered species?
...
G.G.: [pause] Yes
g.g.: .... But now that you've stated your position so frankly, I do have to make mention of the fact that you yourself have by-lined critical dispatches from time to time. I even recall a piece on Petula Clark which you contributed some years back to these columns and which --
G.G.: – and which contained more aesthetic judgment per square page than I would presume to render nowadays. But it was essentially a moral critique, you know. It was a piece in which I used Miss Clark, so to speak, in order to comment on a social milieu.
g.g.: So you feel that you can successfully distinguish between an aesthetic critique of the individual – which you reject out of hand – and a setting down of moral imperatives for society as a whole.
G.G.: I think I can. Mind you, there are obviously areas in which overlaps are inevitable. Let's say, for example, that I had been privileged to reside in a town in which all the houses were painted battleship grey.
g.g.: Why battleship grey?
G.G.: It's my favourite colour.
g.g.: It's a rather negative colour, isn't it?
G.G.: That's why it's my favourite. Now then, let's suppose for the sake of argument that without warning one individual elected to paint his house fire-engine red --
g.g.: – thereby challenging the symmetry of the town planning.
G.G.: Yes, it would probably do that too, but you're approaching the question from an aesthetic point of view. The real consequence of his action would be to foreshadow an outbreak of manic activity in the town and almost inevitably – since other houses would be painted in similarly garish hues – to encourage a climate of competition and, as a corollary, of violence.
g.g.: I gather, then, that red in your colour lexicon represents aggressive behaviour.