My mother-in-law speaks not a word of English. I speak not a word of Tajiki. So I smile at her ingratiatingly and she fixes me with a beady eye.
There's no doubt that scientific training helps many authors to write better science fiction. And yet several of the very best were English majors who could not parse a differential equation to save their lives.
English once accepted as an international language is no more secure than French has proved to be as the one and only accepted language of diplomacy or as Latin has proved to be as the international language of science.
I landed a job with Roger Corman. The job was to write the English dialogue for a Russian science fiction picture. I didn't speak any Russian. He didn't care whether I could understand what they were saying he wanted me to make up dialogue.
English is necessary as at present original works of science are in English. I believe that in two decades times original works of science will start coming out in our languages. Then we can move over like the Japanese.
I love the sad songs with their maudlin self-deprecating almost funny lyrics. As an Englishman they make a lot of sense.
Even modern English people are imperious superior ridden by class. All of the hypocrisy and the difficulties that are endemic in being British also make it an incredibly fertile place culturally. A brilliant place to live. Sad but true.
There were two sides to David Lean: on the one side he was kind of a rather stiff disciplined Englishman. And then he had this kind of romantic side to him. I think being true to both sides of your nature is important.
I had found English audiences highly satisfactory. They are the best listeners in the world. Perhaps the music-lovers of some of our larger cities equal the English but I do not believe they can be surpassed in that respect.
I've always had great respect for Paddington because he is amusingly English and eccentric. He is a great British institution and my generation grew up with the books and then Michael Horden's animations.