Alan Bradley
Alan Bradley
thinking long-ago oatmeal
I had long ago discovered that when a word or formula refused to come to mind the best thing for it was to think of something else: tigers for instance or oatmeal. Then when the fugitive word was least expecting it I would suddenly turn the full blaze of my attention back onto it catching the culprit in the beam of my mental torch before it could sneak off again into the darkness.
cultivating
Anyone who knew the word slattern was worth cultivating as a friend.
thinking politics lists
The spectrum on the list is very broad. It includes leftists who think that whiny liberals should be stuffed in a sack and drowned.
politics fervent
Liberals have always been the most fervent Imperialists.
daughter father long-ago
It is not unknown for fathers with a brace of daughters to reel off their names in order of birth when summoning the youngest, and I had long ago become accustomed to being called 'Ophelia Daphne Flavia, damn it.
thinking sky doors
Whenever I'm out-of-doors and find myself wanting to have a first-rate think, I fling myself down on my back, throw my arms and legs out so that I look like an asterisk, and gaze at the sky.
flattery
To be most effective, flattery is always best applied with a trowel.
spoiled spoiled-brat brat
Compared with my life Cinderella was a spoiled brat.
book grandmother great-love
I grew up in a very British family who had been transplanted to Canada, and my grandmother's house was filled with English books. I was a very early reader, so I was really brought up being surrounded with piles of British books and British newspapers, British magazines. I developed a really great love of England.
careers long people
During a long career in TV broadcasting, I spent a lot of time contributing to other people's creations.
people littles enjoy
Whenever I'm with other people, part of me shrinks a little. Only when I am alone can I fully enjoy my own company.
teaching thinking together
TV and film taught me to think cinematically. Teaching others to edit, for example, provides a great deal of insight into the millions of ways in which given elements can be put together to tell a story.
self two laughing
I'm at that age where I watch such things with two minds, one that cackles at these capers and another that never gets much beyond a rather jaded and self-conscious smile, like the Mona Lisa.
children father book
I was an early reader, and my grandmother, who as a child had been forbidden to read by a father who believed books to be frivolous time-wasters, delighted in putting her favorite volumes into her grandchildren's hands.