Andrew O'Hagan — Scottish Novelist born on December 30, 1968,

Andrew O'Hagan, FRSL is a Scottish novelist and non-fiction author. He is also an Editor at Large of Esquire , London Review of Books & Critic at large for T: The New York Times Style Magazine. Andrew is currently a creative writing fellow at King's College London... (wikipedia)

When you grow up by the sea, you spend a good deal of time looking at the horizon. You wonder what on Earth the waves might bring - and where the sea might deposit you - until one day you know you have lived between two places, the scene of arrival and the point of departure.
I wasn't like other boys. At any rate, I wasn't like my three elder brothers: they excelled at football and they were like other boys, going up to bed each night hugging annuals filled with stories about the glories of Pele and Danny McGrain.
A good nationalism has to depend on a principle of the common people, on myths of a struggling commonality.
Long before the arrival of reality TV - before speed cameras, before recording angels on buses and lampposts - I felt I was living in a country that already knew how to watch itself. It was journalism that held the responsibility for seeing who we were and noticing what we did.
A living museum must surely see itself as a locus of argument. A breathing art institution is not a lockup but a moveable feast.