We've always had a pretty competitive and pretty ferocious battle with British Airways... It's lasted now about 14 years, and we're very pleased to have survived it. ↗
The British regulatory system was revised, so that bigger profits were encouraged, which removed the option of big spending on programming. Quality just fell off a cliff, and all the old hands either left or were fired for being too expensive. ↗
So the books have a greater appeal to a British audience, but that hasn't stopped them making best-seller lists in places like Brazil, Japan and at least a dozen other countries. ↗
However, I began to submit poems to British magazines, and some were accepted. It was a great moment to see my first poems published. It felt like entering a tradition. ↗
I think Bond the character is distinct: He's British, he has a certain code that he lives by, he's incorruptible... he's a classical hero, but he's also fallible. He has inner demons, inner conflicts, and he's a romantic. ↗
The west has a great deal to answer for in the Middle East, from Britain's belated empire-building after the First World War to the US and British policy that condemns modern Iraq to the material and social squalor of a half-century ago. ↗