Every Saturday in the Times’s supplement, Saturday Review, there is a page called ‘My Culture Fix’ where a celebrity answers questions about their cultural life.
I’m waiting patiently for the Times to invite me but realising I’ll probably wait forever, I thought I’d pretend they’ve seen the error of their ways. My answers go like this:
My Favourite author or book: William Boyd, with Ian McEwan a close second.
The book I’m reading: Old Filth by Jane Gardam.
The book I wish I’d written: Anything that became a best seller. None of my books have made the grade.
The book I couldn’t finish: Too many to mention. My rule is 60 pages and if I’m not enjoying a book by then, I quit and start another.
The book I’m ashamed I haven’t read: The Bible. I’ve read bits of it of course, but not the whole thing (but would it survive my 60-page rule?).
My favourite film: Witness.
My favourite play/opera: La Traviata.
The box set I’m hooked on: None.
My favourite TV series. Breaking Bad. My wife and I watched all five series.
My favourite piece of music: Schubert’s String Quintet in C major, written two months before the composer’s death in 1828.
The last work of art that made me cry: None. Laugh yes, cry no.
The lyric I wish I’d written: ‘Ring the bells that still can ring, Forget your perfect offering, There is a crack, a crack in everything, That’s how the light gets in.’ Leonard Cohen.
The music that saved me: Saved me? Sounds like a lifejacket. A very puzzling question.
The instrument I played: The piano fleetingly. My music teacher was fat and smelt. Lessons with her were the equivalent of aversion therapy.
The instrument I wish I’d learnt: The piano.
The music that cheers me up: Baroque music with cheerful tunes.
If I could own one painting what would it be? A watercolour of Fawley Church done by Bob Rudd in the style of John Piper. I already own it – the artist gave it to me as a present for my 70th birthday.
The place I feel happiest: In the Cotswolds. I love the cottages and the drystone walls.
My guiltiest cultural pleasure: Loving Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.
Who would I invite to a fantasy dinner party? Six people, three dead and three alive: Albert Ellis, Johnathan Millar, Leonard Cohen, Stephen Fry, Matthew Syed and Victoria Coren Mitchell (to see if I could understand her jokes and to count the number of times she says, ‘just so.’)
And the music I’d put on: None, I hate background music.
The concert I’m looking forward to: The English Concert at Wigmore Hall.
I wasted an evening watching or listening to: It was an afternoon actually, watching Tar in the cinema. Boring and far too long. In my opinion, no film should be longer than 90 minutes.
The performance I walked out of: I invariably stay, convinced it must get better.
Overrated: Picasso.
Underrated: Watercolours.
Having done this, I can quite understand why the Times haven’t invited me. Ah well……..
