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" What has always puzzled me is the flexibility of God's word. For instance, Catholics can now eat meat on Fridays. And limbo has been abolished. How does this work? Who tells them? "
Simon Hoggart
God
Always
Me
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" Watching the Commons tribute to Margaret Thatcher was like being suffocated inside a gigantic sticky toffee pudding, but one with nasty bogeys planted inside. There was much of the 'Margaret Thatcher who was lucky enough to know me,' especially from her own side of the House. "
Simon Hoggart
Enough
House
Know
" The Chinese do make vast quantities of wine for home consumption, but you wouldn't want to drink it yourself. "
Simon Hoggart
Home
Wine
You
" 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 I feel as outdated as if I wore a Fair Isle sweater, ate Pot Noodle and had a two-bar electric fire in the sitting room. "
Simon Hoggart
Sweater
Friends
Life
" While it is entirely untrue that Canadians lack a sense of humour, the funniest ones tend to head south: Dan Aykroyd, Jim Carrey, Michael J. Fox. "
Simon Hoggart
Sense
Fox
Funniest
" 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. "
Simon Hoggart
Poor
Name
Live
" 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. "
Simon Hoggart
My Own
Meaning
I Am
" In Washington, success is just a training course for failure. "
Simon Hoggart
Washington
Failure
Success
" 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. "
Simon Hoggart
Sitting
Book
Dinner
" 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. "
Simon Hoggart
Choice
People
Picture
" My colleague Bill Keegan has written a very short book ('Saving the World?') on an unlikely topic - he is the first economist to try to rehabilitate Gordon Brown. "
Simon Hoggart
Short
Book
First
" 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. "
Simon Hoggart
Important
Worth
Sensitive
" All over the U.S. there are people whose lives are being destroyed for lack of proper health care provision, and there is no sight more odious than the rich, powerful and arrogant trying to keep it that way. "
Simon Hoggart
Health
Rich
People
" 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. "
Simon Hoggart
Time
Love
God
" 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
" 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. "
Simon Hoggart
Job
God
Wife
" 'Sir' Richard Branson may be the Julian Assange of British business, in that both believe the world revolves around them. Hence Branson's decision to set up an air service between Manchester and London, above the route of the train line that's been taken from him. "
Simon Hoggart
World
Service
Air
" When you actually see Barack Obama, it's startling how slight he is and how young he looks. "
Simon Hoggart
He
How
Looks
" 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. "
Simon Hoggart
Assuming
Best
Never
" When I was collecting material for a political gossip column, and someone said something interesting, I would wait for them to add, 'and I don't want to read that in your magazine!' In which case I wouldn't use it. But if they didn't remember to say it, I'd nip off to the loo, write the story up, come back and change the subject. "
Simon Hoggart
Remember
Change
Political
" The Tory party is like a rugby union match in which all 30 players are wearing the same strip. They're not sure who they are grabbing round the knees, but they're having a lot of fun doing it. "
Simon Hoggart
Party
Same
Rugby
" The formal Washington dinner party has all the spontaneity of a Japanese imperial funeral. "
Simon Hoggart
Washington
Party
Dinner Party
" I also learned to play Fruit Ninja on an iPad. It is quite hypnotic, and I hope one day to get past 100 points. I remembered that David Cameron admits to being an addict. I wonder if it helps him in his work. 'Great, just destroyed a pineapple! Reminds me, shall we send those grenades to the Syrian rebels?' "
Simon Hoggart
Great
Past
Me
" I think Tony Blair has to come down on one side or the other. You can't be a half-hearted supporter of the possible attack on Iraq. You're either with George Bush or you're against him. "
Simon Hoggart
You
Attack
Down
" Jim Sheridan, the MP who wants to ban sketchwriters from the Commons for being rude about politicians, is a blithering idiot. Sorry, scrub that - clearly a very thoughtful person with whom I might conceivably disagree on some marginal issues. A blithering savant, perhaps. "
Simon Hoggart
Thoughtful
Sorry
Politicians
" 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. "
Simon Hoggart
Children
Alone
Think
" 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. "
Simon Hoggart
Children
Christmas
Detail
" 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. "
Simon Hoggart
Know
Religion
Someone
" Switzerland still has a huge share of the watch market, all advertised at the airport on illuminated hoardings. Gosh, they are ugly. "
Simon Hoggart
Watch
Airport
Ugly
" She is the first head of government in history to give a whole country its second childhood. "
Simon Hoggart
She
Government
Childhood
" What puzzles me is the way that some of the smaller, unknown chateaux imagine that because Chinese millionaires pay ludicrous sums for the great names, they can overcharge for their own inferior fluids. There is no trickledown effect in wine prices. "
Simon Hoggart
Way
Wine
Me