A Quote by John Barnes
My dad was a proper old English gentleman, even though he was from the Caribbean. He used to stand up and salute during the Queen's Christmas speech.
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I love the royal family. I even got up in the middle of the night to watch Kate and William's wedding. And I never miss the Queen's speech on Christmas Day. I feel it's my duty as an English-born woman to watch.
One thing I've always loved and rated me dad for is that, because of him, I've never seen the Queen's Christmas speech.
We have a host of English teachers in the family. My mum is an English teacher, and so are my dad, my aunt and my uncle. I have grown up with family writing competitions, and I can't remember a birthday or Christmas present that didn't include books.
I can't dance to save my life, really - proper, proper dad dancing - but I was once at a wrap party for a show, and at the end of the night, they still hadn't played 'Dancing Queen'. So we extended the wrap party for 40 minutes and played 'Dancing Queen' 11 times in a row.
Flag-burning is plain wrong, and I'll stand up for free speech - even speech I don't like.
My dad was pretty strict. We didn't even get to watch any of his movies until I was, like, 17 years old. I didn't even see his stand-up, really, until I started doing stand-up, and that was when I was 22. So he's pretty strict. We had curfews until I was 17... he didn't play around.
The Master said, "Wealth and honor are things that all people desire, and yet unless they are acquired in the proper way I will not abide them. Poverty and disgrace are things that all people hate, and yet unless they are avoided in the proper way I will not despise them. If the gentleman abandons ren, how can he be worthy of that name? The gentleman does not violate ren even for the amount of time required to eat a meal. Even in times of urgency or distress, he does not depart from it."
People are always coming up to me and saying, 'I heard your dad's speech, and it's really great.' And they'll mention some place I didn't even know my dad was going to.
My mum used to play afrobeats, my dad used to play Caribbean, my sisters and brothers played hip-hop.
Christmas in the Caribbean, after a tiring flight, may sweep you out of the cold but it's not a real Christmas, is it?
When it comes to English stand-up comedy, Indians have only seen the best - Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Cosby and the like. So, when someone claims to be an English stand-up comedian in India, he'd better be very good if he's going to make a life of it.
When the medium of the film is English, even the illiterates also should speak in proper English.
My dad used to be a rapper, he had a rap group. They did proper old school, boom-bap music. He had a high top and everything.
If you only stand up for speech you approve of, you're a hack. If you only stand up for speech that everyone approves of, you're a coward.
This story is based on a gentleman who indeed did... used to come to my parents' house in 1971 from Bangladesh. He was at the University of Rhode Island. And I was four, four years old, at the time, and so I actually don't have any memories of this gentleman.
One thing about Indonesians is that a lot of them, even if they don't understand English, have absolutely no problem memorizing English songs. Even my dad.
