It is the voice of everyday people, rather than of a self-conscious 'artist', that we hear in Caedmon's Hymn, and in such texts as Deor's Lament (also known simply as Deor) or The Seafarer. These reflect ordinary human experience and are told in the ...
It shows a mediocre architect at the top of his game [on the Beetham Tower in Manchester]
Britain, relative to the U.S., is a highly secular society. Philanthropy alone cannot fill the gap left by government cutbacks. And the sources of altruism go deep into our evolutionary past.
I feel the art world in New York has a stronger following than Britain. If you go to a New York art district on a Saturday morning, it will be so busy with families and openings - art is much more ingrained in the culture.
Language has been mobilised and sent into battle; it directs the human carnage of conflict with its enunciation of emotion, stimulating souls to abandon peace.
Contemporary Britain seems an endlessly fascinating place to me - but if I knew a little bit more about other places, and other times, maybe it wouldn't.
There are two places that are hard to write about. A place like Britain, England in particular, which has been written about by everybody, and then the place that's never been written about.
As a nation the people of this lovely island called Britain, are at the point where even one honest politician could give us a collective and conceptual nervous breakdown.
I was dreading all of the ghost stories of working on American television, not in the least, the length. In Britain, a series is six episodes of an hour drama, maybe sometimes eight, but never twenty-two, so I was petrified of that.
Casting me as King Arthur was quite bold of 'Spamalot's producers, although it has been historically proved Arthur was Asian, and that Sunday trading started with Asians in 11th-century Britain.
I am not as cross about Thatcher now as I was in the '80s. Begrudgingly, I can see that some of her policies helped modernise Britain.
Romania, which had the worst dictator in Eastern Europe, Ceausescu, he was a darling of the West. The United States and Britain loved him. He was supported until the last minute.
I take notice of those who have argued consistently for the modernisation of the E.U., but so many of the skeptics in Britain are just hostile to the whole European idea.
Certain formats should never be forgotten, 'Blind Date' for instance, because 'Britain's Got Talent' is really 'New Faces' or 'The Gong Show,' whilst we're basically 'Opportunity Knocks.'
Crossrail is a prime example of infrastructure. It is a rather deadly word, but I think it is exciting stuff, the civil engineering which makes Britain tick - the bridges, tunnels, power and water networks, which bind us together.
We need to dig deep and give people a reason to be optimistic just as Obama is doing in America. Because in the same way that outcome of the U.S. elections will change the course of events there and around the world, so too do politics here in Britai...
There's another way we are getting behind business - by sorting out the banks. Taxpayers bailed you out. Now it's time for you to repay the favour and start lending to Britain's small businesses.
Although I was always very happy in Britain, I never stopped thinking of America as home, in the fundamental sense of the term. It was where I came from, what I really understood, the base against which all else was measured.
No, people back home don't realize why there is this kind of need for heroes in America at the moment. People in Britain don't really understand what's going on here. They don't understand why Camp X-ray exists.
When I was a child in the 1940s and early 1950s, my parents and grandparents spoke of Britain as home, and New Zealand had this strong sense of identity and coherence as being part of the commonwealth and a the identity of its people as being British...
I don't do as many readings as I used to. There was a time when I was on the road a lot more, at home in Ireland, in Britain, in Canada and the States, a time when I had more stamina and appetite for it.
