‘It’s the same lesson I learnt in that cell. What you have to do is live for the day, you have to say, now is life, this very moment. It’s not tomorrow, it’s not yesterday, it’s now, so you have to live it as fully as you can. Invest in every day.’
After speaking to Terry, I will.
ABSOLUTELY LUMLEY
I’M AT AN AWARDS DO and the god of seating plans has smiled benevolently upon me. I’m sat next to Joanna Lumley, one of the UK’s most loved actresses, and also one of the country’s most prolific and effective activists. To talk to, she is as one would expect. Warm, inclusive, crush-inducing. But with these soft-edged charms come inspiring, hard-edged principles: a sense of civic duty, of justice, of doing the right thing. She is a heady combination of warm heart and iron will. Which explains that while her TV and film work would be a career to be proud of in itself, it is her commitments and contributions off screen that are the most remarkable.
Take the new Garden Bridge across the Thames in London. An idea soon to become reality, providing the most beautiful addition to the city this century. Everyone in London knows about it and everybody loves it. Just like Joanna Lumley. But what is less known is that it was entirely her idea, a concept she dreamt up and then agitated to make happen, bending the will of those who naively told her at first it couldn’t be done.
Or look at the issue of Nepalese Gurkha veterans (who served in the British armed forces before 1997), who have been historically denied the right to settle in the UK after fighting for the country – a morally bankrupt decision and one that needed reversing. It was an unfashionable and unfabulous fight, but one that Joanna Lumley took on unreservedly, using her charm, celebrity, conviction and sheer dogged resilience until the victory was achieved and those rights installed.
In short, she is no ordinary woman.
And when I give a short speech later at the awards do and say I’ve been sitting next to Joanna Lumley, the audience erupt into applause: everyone in the room loves her.
There was therefore a synchronicity to the advice she gave me.
‘The secret, darling, is to love everyone you meet. From the moment you meet them. Give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Start from a position that they are lovely and that you will love them. Most people will respond to that and be lovely and love you back and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and you can then achieve the most wonderful things.’
Then she leant forward and whispered in my ear.
‘But get rid of any of the bastards that let you down.’
As I said: warm heart, iron will.
‘THE SECRET, DARLING, IS TO LOVE EVERYONE YOU MEET. FROM THE MOMENT YOU MEET THEM. GIVE EVERYONE THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT.’
– Joanna Lumley
THE ELOQUENT MR FRY
THE PREVIOUS TIME I SPOKE with Stephen Fry he was a robot. The setting was a tech conference, and he attended via an iPad attached to a cyborg-on-wheels, controlled remotely from a joystick and camera in his bedroom. This time, we’re chatting in person over afternoon tea, sipping from bone china cups in a cosy members’ club in London. The different interactions capture two sides of a fascinating man: on the one hand, a self-confessed techno-geek with an interest in the latest gadgets, and on the other a graceful British gentleman with a love of classic traditions and culture.
As you would imagine, meeting his real, rather than virtual, self is the richer of the two encounters. In person you experience his warmth and thoughtfulness, and a wonderful sense of complicity from the stories and confessions he weaves into the conversation. He’s an easy man to spend time with.
Modestly, he says advice is something he is wary of giving, but he does have a few thoughts he’d be happy to share. I am expecting something literary or spiritual, but surprisingly his first thought is a broadsiding of life-coaching. ‘One piece of advice I want to give is avoid all life-coach lessons; they are snake oil, without exception, and the art of stating the so-fucking-obvious it makes your nose bleed.’
I was not, it has to be said, expecting that.
When I query why, he expands further. One reason is ‘their obsession with goal-setting. Because if I meet my goals, what then? Is that it, is my life over? I met my goal, do I just set another one? What’s the meaning of the first goal if the second one has to be set? Or if I don’t meet it, am I a failure?’
As he talks, I subtly turn over the page in the notebook that lists my goals for the day.
Unsurprisingly, Stephen does not have a life coach. But he does have Noël Coward. And a quotation from him, which Stephen has above his desk, guides his approach to life: Work is more fun than fun.
‘If you can make that true of your work, you will have a wonderful life. I know how lucky I am to have found that, and how unlucky so many are to have not found that. People talk about work–life balance. But the idea of balancing one against the other makes no sense. My work isn’t against my life – work is my life.’
Of course, just loving your work is not enough; if you want to get anywhere, you have to be prepared to work really hard at it too. ‘Everyone I know who is successful works, and works hard. Really hard. Maybe that should be my advice: work your bloody bollocks off.’
But the strongest recommendation Stephen has is to avoid the trap of thinking it is somehow easier for other people.
‘It is never right to look at someone successful and think “That person’s got money, that person’s got looks, that person’s good at cricket … so it’s easier for them.” Chances are, 90 per cent of the time you’re wrong. But even if it is somehow true, thinking that is a very self-destructive thing. It leads only to resentment, which is corrosive and destroys everything but itself.’
Stephen believes it is better to try and put yourself in their shoes. Imagine what life is like for them.
‘It is the secret of art, and it is the secret of life: the more time you spend imagining what it’s like to be someone else, the more you develop empathy for others, the easier it is to know yourself and to be yourself.’
Which is the best thing for us all to be.
‘Work your bloody bollocks off.’
– STEPHEN FRY
THE EROTIC INTELLIGENCE OF ESTHER PEREL
THIS IS PERHAPS THE ULTIMATE sign of the times: I am at an international tech conference, featuring literally thousands of founders of cutting-edge internet companies, but the talk everyone wants to hear is Esther Perel’s, the world’s most renowned relationship therapist and advisor-in-chief on handling intimacy in the modern age.
Esther is ready to speak, but the organisers won’t let her. We’re in the main auditorium and there are 500 more people than there are seats. Founders are sat on the steps, stood at the back, crammed into the doorways. However, the fire regulations won’t allow for such numbers, so an announcement is made: until the extra 500 people leave, Esther can’t start. But no one is prepared to miss out and a stand-off ensues. It’s resolved only by Esther promising to repeat the talk later for the people who can’t stay. In fact, such is the demand that over the weekend she ends up giving four talks. In comparison, the founder of Uber gives just one.
I catch up with Esther later, in her current hometown