New Yorkers weren’t rude so much as tense. If I went into a tobacconist and started with my public school patter, “I’m so sorry to bother you but I’d… - John Cleese

I realised that I really disliked him, and I knew exactly why: he didn’t know the difference between being solemn and being serious.

My education, in other words, was a test of my willpower; and I accepted the challenge - to such an extent, indeed, that I think at some level of my teenage consciousness I truly believed that the whole point of going to school was to learn how to focus attention on subject matter that was of no consequence to me. The message I received at Clifton was: education is not primarily about understanding the world; its real purpose is character-building. As a corollary, I inferred that to study anything in which you had a real interest was, if not exactly cheating, certainly missing the point.

I could see (though not as clearly as I do now) that one of my biggest problems was me. Because I wanted everyone to like me and to approve of me, I tried to be nice to everyone all the time and this proved a remarkably efficient way of losing control over my life.