“I cannot be alone in being pretty nauseated by Red Nose Day, or at lea...” — Simon Hoggart Quote

“I cannot be alone in being pretty nauseated by Red Nose Day, or at least its television manifestation. Do I think that wretchedly poor children in Africa should get food and life-saving drugs? Of course. Do I want to be hectored into contributing by celebrities who earn more in a 10-minute slot than many of these families get in a year? Nope.”

“The formal Washington dinner party has all the spontaneity of a Japanese imperial funeral.”

“Life was so much simpler in pre-video days when everyone refused invitations because the 'Forsyte Saga' was on. Now we all just have a long list of unwatched shows, all of which, it seems, our friends are raving about. I feel as outdated as if I wore a Fair Isle sweater, ate Pot Noodle and had a two-bar electric fire in the sitting room.”

“If you read the 'Daily Mail,' you would imagine that the British middle classes lead lives of unremitting misery.”

“I've been intrigued by 'Le Monde' ever since work took me to Paris once, and I noted that on a day when there was some huge worldwide story, the paper led its front page on some cabinet changes in Turkey. It implied a magnificent disdain for the quotidian folderol of mere news.”

“I've always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted.”

“I carry the continent of Africa on my shoulders proudly.”

“Every time a Hollywood director shoots a film about Africa that features a Western protagonist, I shake my head - because Africans, real people though we may be, are used as props in the West's fantasy of itself.”

“The white man is not indigenous to Africa. Africa is for Africans. Zimbabwe is for Zimbabweans.”

“I think the aloe is one of South Africa's most powerful, beautiful and celebratory symbols. It survives out there in the wild when everything else is dried.”

“I don't want to see that two-tier Senegal, that two-tier Africa, when you have those at the top and those at the bottom, people who are hungry, people who do not have enough to eat.”