Acquired naiveté

Robert Newman is a novelist too. But in this brilliant stand-up performance about 'the history of oil' he begins by wondering why professional journalists fail to highlight the continuity of 90 years of western intervention in the Middle East. He calls it 'acquired naiveté'. The kind of thing, I imagine, one needs to sign the Euston Manifesto. That makes me laugh too.

One might keep this in mind when literary journalists repeat the old chestnut that non-fiction is supplanting the novel.