James Adomian

I used to impersonate people a lot when I was very young. But the good Lord gives us teachers to make fun of first. And then, of course, by college, I eventually graduated to a more sophisticated kind of comedy more people were familiar with.

I'm not going to be around for a long time, so I like to be able to look at myself in the mirror and say I talked about stuff when I'm not supposed to and didn't have to. I could be in the closet, but I feel insulted at the idea that I should be.

Like the 'little emperors' of one-child China, too many Boomers were taught early that the world was made (or saved) for their comfort and enjoyment. They behaved accordingly, with a self-indulgence that was wholly rational, given their situation.

For a boy of ten, used to the coal bings and rust-coloured burns of Cowdenbeath, the fields and woodland of Kingswood, with its overgrown but stately avenue of copper-barked sequoias, felt like a local version of paradise.