麻豆社

In five Essays, Rachel Cooke takes a wry and wide-ranging look at disappointment. She believes life is full of let-downs, the 'twenty-first-century world seems expressly to set us up' for them. From a cup of coffee to new clothes, highly anticipated pleasures often prove to be an anti-climax.

In this episode, she takes a look at artistic disappointment, from 19th-century artist Benjamin Haydon whose attempts to stage a grand exhibition were thwarted by the far more popular ' General Tom Thumb'; to the contemporary writer whose book event is - disappointingly - empty. Creative disappointment, which often follows years of solitary work, is, Rachel feels, one of the worst kinds.