Guardian interview: "What I see in the mirror: Tim Brooke-Taylor" 10 Aug 2012
11/08/2012 17:16 GMT

Posted by lisa

This article appears online at http://www.guardian.co.uk/fashion/2012/aug/10/what-see-mirror-tim-brooke-taylor?newsfeed=true



What I see in the mirror: Tim Brooke-Taylor

'My best feature is my nose. It's pointy, which makes it easier for cartoonists to draw my face'


Tim Brooke-Taylor

guardian.co.uk, Friday 10 August 2012 17.59 EDT



There's a fuzzy face when I look in the mirror – damn, where are my glasses? That's better. So who is this academic person in front of me? I am thinking it must be the glasses. "Take them off," my wife says. "You look better without them and, while you're about it, cut the hairs in your nose." She's got a thing about nose hair. Fortunately, I don't have ear hair, or we'd be off to Relate.

My wife says I look young for my age – I am 72; I think it's the fairish hair, which hides the grey. I have rosy cheeks and bluey-grey eyes and my best feature is my nose, because it's pointy. It makes it easier for cartoonists to draw my face.

I would like to be taller – I am five foot eight and a half – and an Olympic athlete. I don't do serious exercise, although I play golf, which gets me out, and I swim a bit. I am very good at sport-watching.

I eat what I like, but over the past two or three years, I have been getting a smaller and smaller appetite, which has allowed me to remain slim. I now find that I am appalled at how much people eat.

Recently, I was looking on YouTube at an interview I did in Australia in the 70s, when I was promoting The Goodies. I couldn't believe it, I looked quite good looking. I seriously don't remember that. I think it's probably true of most people, when they see it, they don't believe it. When they do believe it, it's too late.

• Tim Brooke-Taylor's new BBC1 series, Animal Antics, starts next month.