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My dad Alan loved Westerns and we watched them together when there wasn’t much else on TV. I had toy cowboys I’d call Richard Widmark or Gregory Peck and we’d restage the Battle of the Alamo.

Giles Coren

Where my dad taught me everything about writing, Graham Paterson, who gave me my first job at The Times, taught me everything about journalism, which is that it’s no big deal, and it’s more important to have a glass of wine.
GILES COREN

Dad Everything First Job Laugh Person Taught Time
A man of strong opinions is one thing. But a man whose strong opinions depend entirely on how he is feeling in that instant is a disastrous thing in a city of 10 million people just trying to muddle through.
GILES COREN

City Depend Entire Instant Madden Men Million Opinion People Strong Try
I used to be so angry. I think back to my early days as a critic in the late 1990s, and I blush.
GILES COREN

Angry Back Blush Critic Day Early Late Think Use
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
As drivers desert the city I find myself clinging more and more to my father’s belief that a man without a car is not really a man.
GILES COREN

Car City Cling Desert Driver Father Great Man More Really Without
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
We built walls around them with slits through which to fire arrows at scary, cross-eyed rural people, and brought our food and family inside because they were the safest places to be.
GILES COREN

Arrow Brought Build Cross Family Food Inside People Place Rural Safety Scary Wall
I think unionization of labour is a great thing.
GILES COREN

Greta Labor Thing Think Unionization
I tried to leave the city once, for one of those other places. And, my God, the silence. I could hear myself think, and found that I wasn’t. I am not designed to be lonely as a cloud.
GILES COREN

City Cloud Design Ear God Leve Lonely Myself Place Try
I come from a country where there’s a reputation for bad press.
GILES COREN

Bad Come Country Press Reputation
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
I have a tailor now, I have a doctor, a wine merchant, a jeweller, a gardener, a cleaner, and a nanny. It was clearly ridiculous that I did not have a hairdresser. So I got one.
GILES COREN

Clearly Doctor Gardner Hairdresser Many Merchant Ridiculous Tailor
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
I used to be a very angry person, I used to throw things and break them. Then I had five years of constant psycho-analysis, and I don’t get angry any more.
GILES COREN

Analysis Angry Break Constant Five Person Physio Thing Use Year
I always say what I think to be amusing.
GILES COREN

Always Anything Say Thing
There is nothing wrong with getting a bus. Nothing in any way demeaning about boarding a huge smelly communal vehicle that will rumble noisily and very slowly in the vague direction of the place you need to get to and then dump you half a mile away in the freezing wind and rain.
GILES COREN

Bus Getting Nothing With Wrong

My dad Alan loved Westerns and we watched them together when there wasn’t much else on TV. I had toy cowboys I’d call Richard Widmark or Gregory Peck and we’d restage the Battle of the Alamo.

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My dad Alan loved Westerns and we watched them together when there wasn’t much else on TV. I had toy cowboys I’d call Richard Widmark or Gregory Peck and we’d restage the Battle of the Alamo.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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