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My father was a film-maker. He always said he wanted to go like Humphrey Jennings, the legendary director who stepped backwards over a cliff while framing a better shot.

A. A. Gill

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A. A. Gill
Age: 62 †
Born: 1954
Born: June 28
Died: 2016
Died: December 10
Journalist
Writer
Edinburgh
Scotland
Aa Gill
Blair Baillie
Adrian Anthony Gill
Adrian Gill
Death
Maker
Film
Backwards
Jennings
Better
Makers
Humphrey
Wanted
Shot
Framing
Always
Director
Legendary
Like
Shots
Cliff
Directors
Stepped
Father
Cliffs

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I still secretly believe that afternoons are the time for the test card and you shouldn't watch television when the sun is out.
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A lobster bisque ought to be the crowning glory of the potager. And this one was excellent. Silky as a gigolo's compliment and fishy as a chancellor's promise.
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Is it a particularly British trait to so utterly adore truly appalling men, from Tony Hancock through to Steptoe and Alf Garnett, Captain Mainwaring, Rigsby, Del Boy, Victor Meldrew and on to David Brent from The Office. The most deeply adored characters are all simply vile.
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Breakfast is everything. The beginning, the first thing. It is the mouthful that is the commitment to a new day, a continuing life.
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Science fiction is never about the future, in the same way history is rarely about the past: they're both parable formats for examining or commenting on the present.
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The reason that chefs become chefs is that they're not allowed into rooms with windows.
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The truth and the facts aren't necessarily the same thing. Telling the truth is the object of all art facts are what the unimaginative have instead of ideas.
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Sport is how poor kids from poor countries pass through the eye of the needle to riches and recognition.
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The interesting adults are always the school failures, the weird ones, the losers, the malcontents, this isn’t wishful thinking. It’s the rule.
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Like most parents, I've been stumped by homework, the big questions, such as: 'What is the point of geography - the pilot always knows where we are going?'. Answer: 'If you didn't know any geography, people would think you were an American, and you wouldn't be able to put them right because you wouldn't know where they live.'
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I don't know how long a child will remain utterly static in front of the television, but my guess is that it could be well into their thirties.
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Beautifully shot, impeccably paced, it was a clear, unrelenting look at the National Trust, its friends and enemies, and it makes you want to burn your passport and beg the Luftwaffe to have another go.
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America didn’t bypass or escape civilization. It did something far more profound, far cleverer: it simply changed what civilization could be.
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Nobody ever forgets their first night in the bush. It's among the precious, meagre handful of life firsts that remain indelible.
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Celebrity is a national drama whose characters' parts and plots are written by the tabloids, gossip columnists, websites and interactive buttons. The famous don't actually have to turn up to their own lives at all.
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Americans think the only funny Brits are John Cleese, Benny Hill and whoever makes our toothpaste. They're not laughing with us, they are laughing at us.
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Facts are what pedantic, dull people have instead of opinions.
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He (Jeremy Clarkson) is the last man standing on the beach commanding the glaciers' melt waters to go back
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We like to see death as an unfair conspiracy, and what we want is a magic practitioner, a combination of Dr Watson and Sherlock Holmes.
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You either get the point of Africa or you don't. What draws me back year after year is that it's like seeing the world with the lid off.
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