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" I've been intrigued by 'Le Monde' ever since work took me to Paris once, and I noted that on a day when there was some huge worldwide story, the paper led its front page on some cabinet changes in Turkey. It implied a magnificent disdain for the quotidian folderol of mere news. "

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" I think the great thing about grandparents is seeing another home, realising that people you love can have different priorities, different diversions, different opinions and lead quite different lives from the ones you see every day, and that is immensely valuable. "

Simon Hoggart

Home

Think

People

" She is the first head of government in history to give a whole country its second childhood. "

" When you visit a foreign city you are in it, but not of it, separated by a glass wall. Once, while a student, I was getting dressed in my ground-floor room when a family of Italians crossed the grass to watch, as if I were laid on for their amusement and instruction. "

" Denis Healey refused to contribute an article to the 'Guardian' about his intentions, and was punished by the electorate - and then all Labour MPs - for his presumption in assuming they already knew everything about him. He became famously the best prime minister we never had. Perhaps. "

" One of the pleasures of staying with friends is that you get to browse their shelves. I always arrive with a book, but I almost never read it. It would be like sitting at their dinner table and opening a packet of sandwiches. "

" Switzerland still has a huge share of the watch market, all advertised at the airport on illuminated hoardings. Gosh, they are ugly. "

" During my own gap year, I learned an invaluable lesson - that I was a lousy teacher. Even though the children I 'taught,' in upcountry Uganda, were desperate for qualifications, they largely ignored me. Until, that is, I realised that they wanted to hear about other young persons around the world. "

" British diplomats who worked in Iran during the 1980 hostage crisis are deeply upset by Ben Affleck's Oscar-winning film 'Argo,' which suggests they refused shelter to the group who managed to get out of the U.S. embassy. "

" Americans are fascinated by their own love of shopping. This does not make them unique. It's just that they have more to buy than most other people on the planet. And it's also an affirmation of faith in their country. "

" Every time humanists try to get a slot on 'Thought For the Day' on Radio 4, they are told it's reserved for 'the faith community,' whatever that is. Yet 'TfT' is almost always pabulum about how God wants us all to love each other and care for the unfortunate. I'm sure humanists would say much the same, without God. "

" Poor Harper Seven Beckham, having to live with that name all her life. It's the Boy Named Sue syndrome; at the very least it will toughen her up. "

" In Washington, success is just a training course for failure. "

" Even I would find a book about my life pretty dull. "

" To be fair to the Inquisition, they only used confessions extracted after the torture had ended, which let them claim that admissions had been freely given; the fact that the torture would have started again if they hadn't confessed was a minor detail. "

" Life was so much simpler in pre-video days when everyone refused invitations because the 'Forsyte Saga' was on. Now we all just have a long list of unwatched shows, all of which, it seems, our friends are raving about. I feel as outdated as if I wore a Fair Isle sweater, ate Pot Noodle and had a two-bar electric fire in the sitting room. "

" Kind 'Guardian' readers have been forwarding me round robin Christmas newsletters for years now: lengthy missives full of perfect children, exotic holidays, talented pets and endless, tedious detail. The notes that accompanied them revealed they had inspired in the original recipients everything from mild irritation to absolute rage. "

" The Chinese do make vast quantities of wine for home consumption, but you wouldn't want to drink it yourself. "

" I know of no wars started by anyone to impose lack of religion on someone else. We have lethal Sunni v Shia, Catholic against Protestant, but no agnostic suicide bombers attack crowded atheist pubs. "

" If you read the 'Daily Mail,' you would imagine that the British middle classes lead lives of unremitting misery. "

" It's sad that the BBC is toning down Dennis the Menace for a cartoon series. He is losing his weapons, catapult and peashooter, will no longer pick on Walter the Softy, and his ferocious grimace is to be replaced by a charming, boyish smile. "

" When you actually see Barack Obama, it's startling how slight he is and how young he looks. "

Simon Hoggart

How

Looks

" Some government expenditure actually makes a profit. Our theatre leads the world. Loads of tourists must be attracted by the fact that you could spend a week in London doing nothing but visit superb museums and galleries, free. "

" We all have our opinions. But I suspect that writers are actually less worth heeding, because they regard themselves as so uniquely important, so culturally sensitive. "

" A married vicar is likely to regard his vocation as a job - a tough and ill-paid one, to be sure - but a priest is seen as a pillar of the community, answerable only to his parishioners and his God, rather than to a wife and children. "

" Corney & Barrow are proud to have the royal warrant, meaning that they provide the Palace with some of the greatest - and necessarily most expensive - wines from around the world. I am pleased to say that they also hold my own warrant, for providing exceptional wines at - surprisingly - modest prices. "

" The formal Washington dinner party has all the spontaneity of a Japanese imperial funeral. "

" I cannot be alone in being pretty nauseated by Red Nose Day, or at least its television manifestation. Do I think that wretchedly poor children in Africa should get food and life-saving drugs? Of course. Do I want to be hectored into contributing by celebrities who earn more in a 10-minute slot than many of these families get in a year? Nope. "

" Remember how Margaret Thatcher came to believe that abroad was more important than at home? Didn't do her much good. "

" When people move from one extreme set of views to embrace another equally batty picture of the world, they expect us to applaud their choice, as if the fact that they have rejected one form of nuttiness somehow validates the screwball views they hold now. "

" I've served on five different juries, and many of them were bonkers in their own way. "