Alan Coren
Alan Coren
Alan Coren was an English humourist, writer and satirist who was well known as a regular panellist on the BBC radio quiz The News Quiz and a team captain on BBC television's Call My Bluff. Coren was also a journalist, and for nine years was the editor of Punch magazine...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth27 June 1938
believe sweden way
Ethnically, the Germans are Teutonic...being made up of Vandals, Gepidae, and Goths, all of whom emigrated - south from Sweden in about 500 BC; why they emigrated is not exactly clear, but many scholars believe it was because they saw the way Sweden was going, i.e. neutral.
historical vision magic
Disneyworld...is a historical reconstruction as sanitised as the Kremlin's, and a future vision as uncognisant of contemporary pointers as Peter Pan's. It is a magic carpet under which everything has been swept.
sweet flower passion
English Bohemianism is a curiously unluscious fruit. ... Inside this hothouse, huge lascivious orchids slide sensuously up the sweating windows, passion-flowers cross-pollinate in wild heliotrope abandon, lotuses writhe with poppies in the sweet warm beds, kumquats ripen, open and plop flatly to the floor-and outside, in a neat, trimly-hoed kitchen-garden, English bohemians sit in cold orderly rows, like carrots.
country delicacy bread
Malta is the only country in the world where the local delicacy is the bread.
war way lasts
Having lost the last war, they are currently enjoying a Wirtschaftswunder , which can be briefly translated as "The best way to own a Mercedes is to build one.
strong boys men
In the days when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, I know one boy who won't be sweating. I intend to raise my coffin-lid briskly, throw a few things into an overnight bag, and, whistling something appropriate, prepare to meet my Maker.
humorous fools-day two
I sometimes wonder if the manufacturers of foolproof items keep a fool or two on their payroll to test things.
water age mystery
There are many mysteries in old age but the greatest, surely, is this: in those adverts for walk-in bathtubs, why doesn't all the water gush out when you get in?
freedom thinking democracies-have
Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear.
beautiful tomorrow-may-never-come yesterday
Enjoy your life today because yesterday had gone and tomorrow may never come
purpose purpose-of-life grievance
To have a grievance is to have a purpose in life.
choosing consists democracy dictators hear
Democracy consists of choosing your dictators after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear
should-have interesting people
Television is more interesting than people. If it were not we should have people standing in the corner of our room.
personality
Being a personality is not the same thing as having a personality.