It is possible to make a photofit for Gulfman. He is thirty to thirty-five, lower middle class and embarrassingly aspirant. His education is redbrick/polytechnic. He believes himself to be shrewd, likes to say that he is a cynic. He reads Wilbur Smith and the free magazine that comes with his new Gold Card. Jewelry is worn—sometimes a Credit Suisse token on a chain. He despises the arts—he might go to the amateur Gilbert and Sullivan, if there is someone in it he knows. He likes to talk about camcorders, compact discs, kit-cars and tax shelters. His wife—very often his second wife—is deeply interested in nail polish. Her ambition is to open a nursery school.

Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self-…, loc. 184