I don’t think I

I don’t think I ever saw Hank with anybody, say, ‘Let’s go write a song.’ One Sunday morning we left Nashville to go to Birmingham to do a matinee and a night, and he said, ‘Hand me that tablet up there.’ And he wrote down, ‘Hey, good lookin’, what you got cookin” and before we … Read more

This is about putting

This is about putting education absolutely in the centre of enterprise and then using the traditions of Birmingham to inspire and grow. If you have knowledge and business linked together you will grow well, you go further down the innovative path and actually you create more and more jobs. Those jobs will only be available … Read more

I grew up in

I grew up in a very loving middle class family. My parents were educators. I’m not even the first PhD in my family. They tried to shield me, just as other parents in my neighborhood tried to shield their children. But you knew there was a reason that you couldn’t go to that theme park … Read more

The provincial intellectual is

The provincial intellectual is doomed to arguing at low level… there is still no Australian literary world, not in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide. It is some consolation to realise that there is no literary world in Birmingham or Los Angeles either. I have heard there is one in Montreal, but I don’t believe it. The literary … Read more