Jeanette Winterson in yesterday’s Books supplement to The Times.
I am not an absent-minded person, and certainly not like Wittgenstein who had to summon his friends to help him fasten his braces — he couldn’t match the loops to his trouser buttons, and if left to dress unaided, went forth into Cambridge in a tweedy mass of clown clothes.
Complete bollocks of course about a notoriously fastidious and meticulous man. Which leaves me wondering first where on earth Winterson got that absurdity, and second why the supplement’s editor couldn’t be bothered to check.
She might have confused Wittgenstein with Adam Smith, who was notoriously absent-minded.
One was Austrian and the other a Scot, one at Cambridge and the other at Edinburgh, one hot-tempered and the other quite mild, but apart from that, they’re quite similar.
I’ve been told that insufficient interest in matters of the head very often goes hand in hand with excessive interest in matters concerning trousers. I don’t know if this is a rule to go by.