Following the unseemly decision of Penguin Books to publish the maunderings of a has-been pop singer as a “Classic”, we now have the equally risible sight of the British Library paying £100,000 for the collected scribblings and jottings of the hugely untalented writer Hanif Kureishi.

“Kureishi said it was important that it was the British Library that looked after the archive”, apparently – my italics – thus winning this week’s Self-Regarding Wanker Award.

Kureishi : preening