. . . "The whole book, in fact, is a compelling insight into the bohemian world of England before the 1960s, when underground/ alternative lifestyles are supposed to have begun in earnest but--if the evidence of this biography and Nigel Richardson's brilliant Dog Days in Soho is to be believed, which I think it is--everything actually started to get a little bit tame.I always found Crisp an irritating" .