BOOK of the week

THE HACKING SCANDAL

“It’s like the Berlin Wall coming down or the fall of Soviet Russia. On one level, I can’t think of a news story that’s given me more pleasure. It’s the moment when someone takes on the school bully.

“My only profound sadness is there’s no evidence I was hacked. I take this as a personal insult. I’m not even hack-worthy.”

LIBRARIES TURNING INTO COMPUTER CLUBS

“My first instinct on closing them was that this was terrible. It’s stopping people learning who can’t afford to buy books.

“Then I thought, ‘Aren’t libraries alienating, quite smelly places, filled with strange people who I don’t want to hang around with?’ Just to check, I went to a local library and found it’s all clean, smart and lovely, but it’s still not what I want it to be. There weren’t many books. And in a romantic way, I don’t want libraries to be computer clubs. My point is, when the people march to defend libraries, most of them won’t know what they’re defending.”

POLITICIANS’ SALES PUFF

“There should be more brilliance in Parliament and when I say more... I mean more than none. Prime Minister’s Questions is a road-rage level of debate. There are only two political speeches I can remember ever moving me... It shouldn’t be that a 54-year-old man can only remember two speeches in Parliament.”

Dispatches From The Sofa: The Collected Wisdom Of Frank Skinner, published by Century, £12.99