"With hindsight," he writes, "it was a trumped-up excuse for radical activism for its own sake".
In Twitter's case, he writes, "it doesn't seem like the confidentiality provisions helped.
"Though I welcome the best of devotional poetry," he writes, "it is rarely achieved".
"In theatrical fact," he writes, "it is usually the plainer and flatter lyric that soars poetically when infused with music".
"But whatever motive may have governed the cowardly and malignant tyrant," he writes, "it is of no importance".
"At morning Mass," he writes, "it was standing, sitting, kneeling, wheeling, dealing, silent, on prompts from occasional mumbling from the altar.
Once a tendency has been put in place by nature, he writes, "it is not essential that each and every expression of it serve survival and reproduction.
"While Alice Orsini undoubtedly shares similarities with Iris Origo," he writes, "it is important to stress that the former is a purely fictional construct.
"To be in your 50s is discombobulating," he writes, "it gnaws at the psyche and maybe warps one's vision".
"Some good may come of this," he writes; "it might teach the French to stop romanticising the Scots".
"While my ambition may be difficult to put into effect," he writes, "it throbs with noble energy".
