Wigan Quotes

(Golden Globe acceptance speech in the style of Jane Austen's letters):

"Four A.M. Having just returned from an evening at the Golden Spheres, which despite the inconveniences of heat, noise and overcrowding, was not without its pleasures. Thankfully, there were no dogs and no children. The gowns were middling. There was a good deal of shouting and behavior verging on the profligate, however, people were very free with their compliments and I made several new acquaintances. Miss Lindsay Doran, of Mirage, wherever that might be, who is largely responsible for my presence here, an enchanting companion about whom too much good cannot be said. Mr. Ang Lee, of foreign extraction, who most unexpectedly apppeared to understand me better than I undersand myself. Mr. James Schamus, a copiously erudite gentleman, and Miss Kate Winslet, beautiful in both countenance and spirit. Mr. Pat Doyle, a composer and a Scot, who displayed the kind of wild behavior one has lernt to expect from that race. Mr. Mark Canton, an energetic person with a ready smile who, as I understand it, owes me a vast deal of money. Miss Lisa Henson -- a lovely girl, and Mr. Gareth Wigan -- a lovely boy. I attempted to converse with Mr. Sydney Pollack, but his charms and wisdom are so generally pleasing that it proved impossible to get within ten feet of him. The room was full of interesting activitiy until eleven P.M. when it emptied rather suddenly. The lateness of the hour is due therefore not to the da ~ Emma Thompson

I started making houses for ants because I thought they needed somewhere to live. Then I made them shoes and hats. It was a fantasy world I escaped to where my dyslexia didn't hold me back and my teachers couldn't criticize me. That's how my career as a micro-sculptor began. ~ Willard Wigan

Flying helicopters is what I do for fun. ~ Willard Wigan

And Wigan Athletic are certain to be promoted barring a mathmatical tragedy ~ Tony Gubba

I was told I would become nothing. Now I am showing people how big nothing is. ~ Willard Wigan

I'm like a mad professor, but without the spiky hair. ~ Willard Wigan

He lived in a fantasy world. There was not a day when he didn't add some Mickey Mouse story about a club that wanted him. First of all, he came in and told me that Arsenal wanted to buy him, then the next week it was Manchester Utd, then the next week it was Real Madrid. He made it clear that he did not want to be at the club so, in the end, there was only one thing I could do - send him to Wigan. ~ Joe Kinnear

I heard someone say that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into heaven. I decided to sculpt camels in a needle. ~ Willard Wigan

I loved Martin Offiah, Andy Farrell and Shaun Edwards in that Wigan team, and they are still heroes today. They were outstanding players and great to watch. ~ Kevin Whately

At home, when the heating pipes made noises, I imagined a tiny person was in there skipping with a rope. The fantasy world of tiny things became my escape. ~ Willard Wigan

My teacher said my brain was the size of a pea. He made my life miserable by singling me out in the classroom as a failure. ~ Willard Wigan

It doesn't take a literary detective, scanning the passage above, to notice that he is partly saying of Orwell what Orwell actually says about Gissing. This half-buried resentment can be further noticed when Williams turns to paradox. I have already insisted that Orwell contains opposites and even contradictions, but where is the paradox in a 'humane man who communicated an extreme of inhuman terror'? Where is the paradox in 'a man committed to decency who actualized a distinctive squalor'? The choice of verbs is downright odd, if not a little shady. 'Communicated'? 'Actualised'? Assuming that Williams means to refer to Nineteen Eighty-Four in the first case, which he certainly does, would it not be more precise to say that Orwell 'evoked' or even 'prefigured' or perhaps simply 'described' an extreme of inhuman terror? Yet that choice of verb, because more accurate, would be less 'paradoxical.' Because what Williams means to imply, but is not brave enough to say, is that Orwell 'invented' the picture of totalitarian collectivism.

As for 'actualising' a distinctive squalor, the author of that useful book Keywords has here chosen a deliberately inexact term. He may mean Nineteen Eighty-Four again - he is obsessed with the 'gritty dust' that infests Orwell's opening passage - or he may mean the depictions of the mean and cramped (and malodorous) existence imposed on the denizens of Wigan Pier. But to 'actualise' such squalor is either to make it real - no contradictio ~ Christopher Hitchens

The microscopic world became my obsession. ~ Willard Wigan

I always say that failure was my friend. I learned nothing at school, so I just lived in my own world. ~ Willard Wigan

Anyone who's seen the Wigan [League] players stripped has been faced with the raw truth of the matter ... No time for male modelling, and even Princess Di would think twice about getting too close to that lot. ~ Colin Welland

St Helens denied early reports that the deals had been manufactured because they refused to sell Higham to rivals Wigan, stressing that the Warriors did not make an offer for the player. Micky Higham requested a move so that he could further his own career, ... We received an offer from Bradford for Micky, which we felt we had to consider. We were then faced with the reality that we could either accede to his request, and receive a very good fee for him, or retain him for the final year of his contract and then let him leave for nothing. ~ Sean Maguire

It is a Lancashire custom to be on the defensive. We anticipate jokes about rain, "bi gum," and Wigan; we expect people to peer at us through the thin layer of smoke they fancy they see around our heads. ~ Sylvia Lovat Corbridge

When I was a kid, I had trouble at school because of my learning disabilities. Carving is my body compensating for the lack of other skills. ~ Willard Wigan

As a kid, I lived in a fantasy world. I used to believe ants could talk. Not once did they say thank you. ~ Willard Wigan

In his article, Bogen concluded: I believe [with Wigan] that each of us has two minds in one person. There is a host of detail to be marshaled in this case. But we must eventually confront directly the principal resistance to the Wigan view: that is, the subjective feeling possessed by each of us that we are One. This inner conviction of Oneness is a most cherished opinion of Western Man ... ~ Philip K. Dick

When you work at a microscopic level, you have to control every part of your body movement - your fingertips, your joints, the pulse in your fingers. ~ Willard Wigan

Sir Alex, Mourinho, Wenger - none of them could have done
a better job at Wigan than Steve Bruce ... ~ Alvin Martin

Even before 2007, this half of a small island was the richest football country on earth. In 2005-2006 the Premiership's total revenue was about £1.4bn, 40 per cent more than its nearest rival, Italy's Serie A. That was before take-off. Now foreign television channels are sending so much cash that the Premiership is expected to take in nearly £1.8bn this season. Even the team that finishes bottom of the table (Wigan might be a good bet) will get £26.8m from TV. That's more than all of Argentine or Belgian football put together. ~ Simon Kuper

It is a testament to the fundamental honesty of football that Israel, with nothing to play for, overcame Russia in Tel Aviv on Saturday. The sport has its faults, but this basic trust is the reason Wembley holds 80,000 and could take more and the track and field venue for the London Olympics will be reduced after the event to the same capacity as the home of Wigan Athletic. ~ Martin Samuel

When I came down south, I went to one of the early Wigan Challenge Cup victories at Wembley, and I was totally hooked from then. ~ Kevin Whately

There are times when I've inhaled my work. There are artworks still inside of me. ~ Willard Wigan

At school I'd want to be so small that nobody could see me, and so my work depicts and reflects me - what it felt like to grow up in a world of pain. ~ Willard Wigan