Sitting here typing away, creating a new character, and then the question hits you “What do you call protagonist THX 1138?”

I’m sure that there are proven methodologies used by the great the good and the very clever – complex algorithms that take innumerable social economic and cultural factors into consideration – and I’m sure people do that. 

I don’t.

New character. 

Government lackey, secret service kind of bloke. 

Needs a name.

Look over my right shoulder, sees a book, opens it, finds the first name, likes the name, uses it.   

Johnathon Lilburne a character following in the path already well established by Thomas Payne. 

Mister Lilburne was a Leveller of some repute, an interesting man, a name that deserved resurrection, a man not as instantly recognisable as our pamphleteer Pain(e), but one who deserved to be.   

But then I suppose we do have the locksmith come contract killer mister Wilbur Smyth, a nod to the literary giant that is indeed Wilbur Smith who must be my most recognisable name..? 

Nod given.

And when you start looking, and when you notice it, I tip my hat to innumerable characters, works of fiction, songs and poems. 

If you like the band New Model Army, the poems of Shelly and Byron, references abound.

I am that transparent. 

Flip even the hotelier, the charming suntanned Freddie is a tip to my favourite artist John Fredrick Lewis and his superb painting Lilium Auratum  displayed  (free to view) at Birmingham Art Gallery in their Pre Raphaelite section – worth an hour or so of your time.   

Anyway, our Leveller, our incarnation of John Lilburne is a agent for a department that does and indeed doesn’t exist, and he has an offer that Amy just cannot refuse – I think you’ll like it!

Oh, the book over my right shoulder “The Leveller Revolution by John Rees”. 

And yes THX1138 is a nod to a film of the same name.