In John Murray’s “Last Moments” Kingsley Amis whose complete stories have just been published by Penguin, looks back hilariously on a career of pricking pomposity and speculates whether he died ‘on the job’ or ‘falling downstairs’

He wrote says Murray solely to cause others discomfort and annoyance. He would however have roared with laughter to find himself sandwiched in this book of poems between John Wayne and King Lear.