It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me. - Anthony Burgess

There were…smiles of encouragement for Lydgate, and some smiles of sweet pity as well, as for the only leper present.

Being young's a sort of sickness,
Measles, mumps or chicken pox.
Gather all your toys together,
Lock them in a wooden box.
That means tolchocks, crasting and dratsing,
All of the things that suit a boy.
When you build instead of busting,
You can start your Ode to Joy.
Do not be a clockwork orange,
Freedom has a lovely voice.
Here is good and there is badness,
Look on both, then take your choice.
Sweet in juice and hue and aroma,
Let's not be changed to fruit machines.
Choice is free but seldom easy-
That's what human freedom means.

Paresis, as it is generally called in preference to the old GPI or general paralysis of the insane, is characterized by symptoms of bewildering variety, confirming the description of syphilis as the Great Imitator or, because of this very wealth of its ultimate manifestations, the Aristocrat of Diseases. Paresis involves a meningoencephalitis which marks its onset by personality changes, mild at first but growing steadily worse. There is irritability, failure of memory and judgement, insomnia, slovenliness, aggression, confusion, delusion, manic depression, epileptiform convulsion, slurred speech, incontinence, emaciation, sensational psychosis, finally death. The act of careless bohemian love, anonymous, quick and uncondomized, is proved not to have been worth the trouble or money.....