Never really had a chance to see the writing of Malcolm Muggeridge – I remember him as a faintly embarrassing figure of fun. But here’s a lovely excerpt of Muggeridge describing America in the 1950s:

What they all want … is what the Americans have got – six lanes of large motor cars streaming powerfully into and out of gleaming cities; neon lights flashing, and juke boxes sounding and skyscrapers rising, storey upon storey into the sky. Driving at night into the town of Athens, Ohio (pop. 3,450), four bright coloured signs stood out in the darkness – “Gas”, “Drugs”, “Beauty”, “Food”. These could have shone forth as clearly in Athens, Greece as in Athens, Ohio. They belonged as aptly to Turkestan, or Sind or Kamchatka …

There are, properly speaking, no Communists, no capitalists, no Catholics, no Protestants, no black men, no Asians, no Europeans, no Right, no Left, and no Centre … There is only a vast and omnipresent longing for Gas, for Beauty, for Drugs and for Food.