David Mitchell: Back Story Read Online Free PDF

amusing way. So stop passing this shit off as insight, interviewers. You’ve not really spotted anything about the people you’re speaking to. You think you see unusual amounts of pain when it’s just performers politely glumming up so as not to rub your noses in the fact that their job is more fun than yours. So they mention that they sometimes feel lonely and hope the article plugs the DVD.
    I suspect that my levels of infantile self-doubt were no more remarkable than my year of birth – which is 1974, by the way. And I certainly didn’t feel inadequate all, or even most, of the time. I often felt special and clever and like I’d probably grow up to be a billionaire toy manufacturer or captain of the first intergalactic ship with a usable living room. In those moods I didn’t want to be normal.
    If I was a happy little four-, five- or six-year-old – and I think I probably was, for all my worries and doubts – it’s thanks to my parents. They always gave me the impression that they were delighted by my very existence – that I rarely did anything wrong and, if I actually did anything right, then that was a tremendous cherry on the amazing cake. I was made to be well-behaved in front of other people, but I certainly felt I could say anything to them – scream, rage, cry, worry, speculate as to the presence of wasps, ask to be addressed in the manner of an eighteenth-century king, pretend to be in a spaceship or on television, suddenly need the loo – and all would still be well.
    There is really only one thing I remember about their general parental shtick which irritates me now, and that was their attitude to Oxford. They were really quite down on it. I suppose they’d only just moved there and didn’t particularly feel welcome or like they belonged there – in contrast, I think, to Salisbury with which they’d also had no previous connections but had immediately loved. My mother missed living by the sea – she still does – and my dad, who grew up in the north, has never had the accent but developed a little of the sixth sense for snootiness. And you don’t need a sixth sense for snootiness to detect it in Oxford. It’s undoubtedly a snooty place. But then it’s got a fair bit to be snooty about. (It’s also got a massive chip on its shoulder about Cambridge, which is understandable.)
    I think my mum and dad imagined they’d move somewhere else before too long, so they discouraged me from getting attached to the place. You’re not really from here, you were born in Salisbury, your mum’s Welsh and your dad’s a bit Scottish, so you’re not even really English – you’re British and not really from the only place you can remember ever being in. That was the message I was given. And I can understand why.
    But that’s not much use when you’re four, when you’re looking for the things that define you. You want a home town and you want to be able to bask in the illusion that it’s the best place in the world. You might even consider supporting the football team.
    Such securities were denied me because, while they never said Oxford was a dump and would always concede that it was a beautiful place with a famous university, I was never allowed to forget the city’s failings – and indeed England’s. England, I was given the impression, was the snootiest part of Britain and consequently undeserving of my allegiance.
    My parents still live in Oxford and I’d be very surprised if they ever leave. They have lots of friends in the area and they’ve grown very fond of it. My brother, Daniel, was born there and our parents were already coming round to the place by then. Consequently he did support the football team for a while and feels tremendous allegiance to the city, to the extent that he has, up till now, neglected to move away.
    So I’ve always felt a bit rootless, but without any of the cachet of most rootless people. You know the sort: Danish father, Trinidadian mother, live in Thame (I’m