Séamas O’Reilly: ‘I find myself wallowing in the the books, music, films and culture of my childhood and adolescence’

There are some worrying signs that I am, in fact, growing down, not up

I fear I have regressed. I speak not of my general appearance during lockdown, since that is less a regression and more like a full-scale devolution. Now that I rarely leave the house, my unkempt hair and, shall we say, casual attitude to wearing trousers have given me the look of someone who is resigned to never again encountering another human being.

No, I mean I have regressed in other, more fundamental ways. At a ...