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When I write I inhabit a personality that is and is not me.

Giles Coren

The world’s most competitive man, my dad. Wouldn’t let us win at Monopoly… he wouldn’t cut any slack for his children.
GILES COREN

Children Competetive Cut Dad Monopoly Stack World
My dad was very successful as a journalist, so I didn’t want to be one. I wanted to be a novelist.
GILES COREN

Dad Journalist Novelist One Successful Want
He was a staffer at Punch but in the evening he wrote columns for the Evening Standard and The Times.
GILES COREN

Column Evening Punch Staffer Standard Time Wrote
The good fortune of my life, which has been to turn those glittering nights into my job, all came from there.
GILES COREN

Came Fortune Glitter Good Job Life Night There Tyrn
I let the other reviewers eat the bad meals, so that I didn’t have to, and my wife and I went out only for the good stuff. And I wrote mostly positive reviews. Not only. But mostly. And, ooooh, it felt an awful lot better.
GILES COREN

Awful Better Feel Felt Good Mostly Review Stuff Wife Wrote
My dad never really wrote what he thought. None of his inner rage and darkness and problems, which we all have, made it on to the page. For him, writing was a process of making everything appear funny.
GILES COREN

All Appear Dad Darkness Everything Funny Inner Made Make Page Problem Rage Really Though Wrote
As a broadly left-wing, environmentally aware urban believer in anthropogenic global warming, I am all for a total ban on motor vehicles.
GILES COREN

Anthropogenic Aware Ban Believer Environment Left Motor Urban Vehicle Wing
My dad is the best and funniest newspaper columnist. There is nobody anywhere near as good.
GILES COREN

Anywhere Best Columnist Dad Funny Good Newspaper Nobody
Personally I ride a bicycle, travel by train and bus and campaign tirelessly for a car taxation system that will hammer ignorant, selfish, petty, fat, spoilt, stupid car abusers into giving up their addiction and walking.
GILES COREN

Abuse Campaign Car Hammer Ignorant Pretty Ride Selfish System Talk Taxation Tirelessly Travel Walk
The first thing I remember is that my dad had a big iron Olivetti typewriter and he worked all night.
GILES COREN

Big Dad First Iron Night Olivetti Remember Thing Typewriter Work
It was fine for my Polish Ashkenazi forebears to live on dumplings and potatoes, because they laboured in the fields. But that diet is unsuitable for an urban lifestyle.
GILES COREN

Country Dumpling Field Fine Forebear Labour Lifestyle People Polish Potato Unsuitable Urban
Not since Ancient Greece have cities been thought of as the ideal living environment for humans. And that was so long ago it predates the invention of trousers.
GILES COREN

Ancient City Country Environmental Human Idea Invention Live Long Not Predate Since Trouser
I have Gordon Ramsay to thank for my TV career because Channel 4 spent a long time trying to find him a sidekick for ‘The F Word’, then he suggested me, knowing I’d stand up to him.
GILES COREN

Career Channel Know People Sidekick Spent Stand Suggest
Gradually, I developed opinions about food, and my French friends taught me that you have to complain in a restaurant.
GILES COREN

Complain Country Develop Food Friend Gradually Restaurant Taught
I come from a country where there’s a reputation for bad press.
GILES COREN

Bad Come Country Press Reputation
I was 41 when I became a dad. I try to be as much fun as my father was, but I’m at home more – and less of a disciplinarian.
GILES COREN

Alone Become Dad Father Home More

When I write I inhabit a personality that is and is not me.

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When I write I inhabit a personality that is and is not me.

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