Quote

I didn't know what I wanted to do when I was a child. I did want to be a cartographer but that was partly because I liked Ordnance Survey maps and when I used to go to my grandparents' house from Southampton Station one went past the headquarters of the Ordnance Survey.

Jonathan Meades

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Jonathan Meades
Age: 77
Born: 1947
Born: January 21
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Screenwriter
Television Presenter
Writer
Salisbury
England
Jonathan Turner Meades
Past
Partly
Ordnance
Used
Maps
Southampton
Wanted
Stations
Headquarters
Children
Liked
Survey
Went
Surveys
Child
Grandparents
House
Grandparent
Didn
Station

More quotes by Jonathan Meades

Image
I don't believe in synergy. I believe that things have to be specific to the medium that they're in.
Jonathan Meades
Image
While I'm sure people in Britain have money worries, they don't have them like the French do. The French, however much money they have, are worried. They're a very stressed people. It seems to be a very essential component of the national psyche.
Jonathan Meades
Image
Vertigo doesn't apply in planes for some reason. You think it's some kind of magic and you don't know how it's keeping you up, but when you're on a cliff top it's a different matter.
Jonathan Meades
Image
I wasn't a keen taker of speed because I didn't like the comedown from it.
Jonathan Meades
Image
Conversion requires a subtler mind. Architects don't like it, architects want to create their own landmark buildings so that people a few years hence will say, 'Oh, that building there is being knocked down, who did that one?'
Jonathan Meades
Image
I'm not against architecture per se, I'm just against bad architecture.
Jonathan Meades
Image
If you have slightly pathological interest in all the components of places, it forces you to engage with them in a way that perhaps otherwise you wouldn't, and that's the only way I can put it.
Jonathan Meades
Image
The construction industry likes nothing more than a blank canvas onto which they can impose a brand new building, because that way they can make more money.
Jonathan Meades
Image
I like extremely effeminate dogs like terriers or schnauzers. I make an exception for giant schnauzers and big poodles. Basically, I like dogs which can be dyed day-glo colours.
Jonathan Meades
Image
I do make myself be interested in places in a way that I don't make myself be interested in people.
Jonathan Meades
Image
If you believe in the existence of fairies at the bottom of the garden you are deemed fit for the bin. If you believe in parthenogenesis, ascension, transubstantiation and all the rest of it you are deemed fit to govern the country.
Jonathan Meades
Image
The only bright feature of cultural relativism's triumph is that it has become establishment orthodoxy and will thus one day be derided, resisted and overthrown.
Jonathan Meades
Image
I think the French agonise more about being French, I don't think English think about being English that much. I think the Scottish think about being Scottish and the Welsh think about being Welsh, but the English don't really care. But the French think about it all the time, it's an absolute preoccupation.
Jonathan Meades
Image
As a driver I have come to believe that the person just in front of me and the person just behind me are always just about to do something really stupid. Tense is not the right word, but I am very hyper-aware of such things.
Jonathan Meades
Image
Brummies run themselves down, they're very self-deprecating. Whereas Yorkshire people certainly aren't.
Jonathan Meades
Image
I genuinely find it difficult to think of places that I'd never want to see again. It might be because part of my career has been concerned with writing about topography.
Jonathan Meades
Image
I like looking at the countryside as well as anyone... a little countryside goes a long way, but it's almost like the DNA of a civilisation is in its cities.
Jonathan Meades
Image
I don't see any point in having a public service broadcaster which attempts to compete with the commercial sector. Obviously part of its remit is to entertain, but entertainment doesn't necessarily mean scraping the bottom of the barrel and appealing to the very lowest common denominator.
Jonathan Meades
Image
I like irrational things. I like scenarios where I can think, 'It would be great if at this point we could do x.' And there doesn't have to be a reason for 'x'.
Jonathan Meades
Image
I think in space or music or art or literature of any kind there has to be some kind of void where the viewer or the spectator or the listener or the reader can insert themselves into it, and there is a certain kind of architectural space which is totalitarian, which does not allow you to do that.
Jonathan Meades