On Lineage.

It’s interesting how we combine characteristics of both parents in our personalities, isn’t it? I was watching Natalia Tsarikova earlier and remembered something my mother once said to me (she was a fairly accomplished soprano, by the way.) She said that she couldn’t understand where I got my love of music from, since my dad had no interest in music at all.

‘I didn’t get it from my dad,’ I replied, ‘I got it from you, you daft bat. It’s the loner gene and curmudgeon tendency I got from him.’

My dad decamped to the loving arms of a much younger woman when I was 5½. That’s another contribution he made to my gene pool. My compulsion to feed the birds, however, came entirely from my mother. (It’s also interesting to note that such Irish heritage as I have came down the male line, hence my fascination with the ladies' legs in Riverdance.)