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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

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Jonathan Meades
Age: 77
Born: 1947
Born: January 21
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Screenwriter
Television Presenter
Writer
Salisbury
England
Jonathan Turner Meades
People
National
Worries
However
Stressed
Worry
Components
Sure
French
Money
Britain
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Much
Essential
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Psyche

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I don't know about virtual world, I think it's more a kind of parallel world. I think the advantages and disadvantages of technology are hugely exaggerated. It doesn't make that much difference. Sure if you've got a mobile phone, you use that over your landline. But I think that life goes on and we absorb stuff.
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I'm not against architecture per se, I'm just against bad architecture.
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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'.
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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.
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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.
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I do make myself be interested in places in a way that I don't make myself be interested in people.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I'm a very, very unreckless person. I mean, I look left, I look right, I look left, I look right, then I repeat the process and then I decide not to cross the road at the last minute.
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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.
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I wasn't a keen taker of speed because I didn't like the comedown from it.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Brummies run themselves down, they're very self-deprecating. Whereas Yorkshire people certainly aren't.
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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.
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I don't believe in synergy. I believe that things have to be specific to the medium that they're in.
Jonathan Meades