You will Oscar you will . . . . . . 

A running gag at Blackwell's Bookshops when I worked there was my resemblance to Oscar Wilde much mirth ensuing when my dear friend and colleague, the writer Alistair McNaught, claimed it in response to my saying someone had said I looked like Richard E. Grant (I wish!) from 'Withnail and I' with which we were moderately obsessed and someone else had said more like 'Boycey' from Only Fools and Horses! I would take Oscar for his lumpen, overweight and somewhat crumpled face like an unmade bed if only for the wit and his being one of my favourite writers. When I left college in 1976 and was wondering what to do next I read everything and had grown up on a copy of 'The Happy Prince' his short stories for children given me by my father.

Here is a letter of Oscar's to an Oxford student and the circle comes back around . . . . . 

Oscar Wilde’s letter to an Oxford student on the uselessness of art:

My Dear Sir

Art is useless because its aim is simply to create a mood. It is not meant to instruct, or to influence action in any way. It is superbly sterile, and the note of its pleasure is sterility. If the contemplation of a work of art is followed by activity of any kind, the work is either of a very second-rate order, or the spectator has failed to realise the complete artistic impression. 

A work of art is useless as a flower is useless. A flower blossoms for its own joy. We gain a moment of joy by looking at it. That is all that is to be said about our relations to flowers. Of course man may sell the flower, and so make it useful to him, but this has nothing to do with the flower. It is not part of its essence. It is accidental. It is a misuse. All this is I fear very obscure. But the subject is a long one.

Truly yours,

Oscar Wilde