I grew up in southern Africa but was born in England, so my family was afflicted with the stiff upper lip of the British. When coupled with the violence we saw as children, that can be a fatal combination. Fortunately, I have an outlet for trauma in my writing.
The British feel of blues has been hard, rather than emotional. Far too much emphasis on 12 bar, too little attention to words, far too little originality.
The parallel development in American blues to the British movement has resulted in Johnny Winters.
When I was, like, 10, I decided it would look really cool, so I pretended I was British. And I've been doing that ever since.
I think it would be a problem if Hollywood was casting British actors only as villains; if that were the case, then certainly there would be cause for concern.
I got a chance to work with so many stalwarts from British cinema. Judi Dench, of course, who is a legend. Then there was my director Stephen Frears. He is the man who made some of British cinema's salient trendsetters.
American shows can go on for 20 years. I respond more to the British format. Three seasons is a long run for them to tell a story.
There's a lot of places where you can go to understand and to learn what it is that British nationalists believe and feel, and to see them in a political setting.
I've always felt, with 'The Iliad,' a real frustration that it's read wrong. That it's turned into this public school poem, which I don't think it is. That glamorising of war, and white-limbed, flowing-haired Greek heroes - it's become a cliched, British empire part of our culture.
The colour of a British wood in autumn is predominantly yellow. There are relatively few European trees which have red leaves in the autumn. But there are splashes of crimson or rust-red colours from a few indigenous trees, like the rowan, as well as from introduced species, like the North American red oak.
