Remotely Interesting, more than anyone, struggles with the dark attraction and moral ambiguity inherent in sex.
On the one hand, we glory in its urgent sensual delights - on the other, we worry terribly that God, and censors, might be watching.
They do, you know - watch, I mean.
Considering the censorship issues that have cast a shadow recently in New Zealand, it is timely that one novel we support implicitly - Lady Chatterley's Lover - has a new television version on Sky's Vibe channel in October.
Because we like Lady Chatterley - and we like the gamekeeper.
We like the way he laid his hand on Lady Chatterley's shoulder, and the way that hand softly, gently, began to travel down the curve of her back.
We like the way his hand softly, softly, stroked the curve of her flank, in the blind instinctive caress.
Thank you D. H. Lawrence.
You lived and loved and wrote, and you were not afraid of the complexities of the human experience.
On October 26, Vibe screens the latest BBC drama to take on the novel that resulted in a trial under the Obscene Publications Act, 1959, at the Old Bailey in London in 1960.
The unreconstructed Anglo Saxon that popped up in the novel were one cause for concern to the faint-hearted.
Fortunately, the world was embarking on a new period of liberalism, when concern about such concepts began to be offensive only to the excessively prudish, and to those who felt guilty of their own humanity.
Happily, the result was 12 jurors who decided the wonderful Penguin Books was not guilty of obscenity.
So began a new age.
It didn't last long.
In fact it ended, in New Zealand at least, last week (yes, we speak of Into the River, Bob McCoskrie and Don Mathieson QC).
Gee, but it was good while it lasted.
Interestingly, the latest BBC go at Lady Chatterley has attracted criticism in some newspapers for being short on swearing and sex.
It stars Holly Grainger in the lead role, exhibiting a ripe fecundity with shining cheeks and pouting lips.
Mr Mellors (Richard Madden, formerly Robb Stark from Game of Thrones) is short-bearded, hairy chested and hard of muscle.
The show begins with a thick layering of class struggle, with an explosion down at mine.
Salt-of-the-earth, dusty-faced miners stagger from the pit after an explosion, while up at Wragby Hall, the smart set gets together for a ripping party.
Constance meets Clifford Chatterley, and the show launches into the well-known story of class, sex and chickens.
That's right censorship - chickens!
• Charles Loughrey
