horatian nibbling

[larvatus]

And so began the great central struggle of political literature, between the powerful men and women who want their deeds recorded and the literary figures who are able to record them in a memorable way. As long as politics lasts, the politicians will feel that they deserve a better press; and the media will feel honour-bound to tease the politicians, to assert their independence and to rub the noses of the politicians in the eternal fact that it is literary folk, with their superior gifts of composition, who will always end up with the final word.
— Boris Johnson, How to live for ever, The Spectator, Saturday, 10 September 2005