I feel opera is an expression of artistic excellence. To do it is expensive, as there’s a requirement for an orchestra, good voices, excellent sets, and the fact that productions generally have only short runs. But I believe it’s something we ought to achieve as a nation. Michael Portillo Read Quote
For someone like me, making a documentary – I don’t kid myself. There’s no influence at all. What I do is entertainment. I would even say much the same about the column I write in ‘The Sunday Times.’ Michael Portillo Read Quote
I have never served on a jury because MPs were exempted – or banned, I think. Michael Portillo Read Quote
People have said to me, ‘Oh, you are much nicer making documentaries than you were in politics.’ So I should be. If you are making a documentary, you are having fun. You are not under any pressure, normally. Michael Portillo Read Quote
When you are being interviewed by Jeremy Paxman, you are the prisoner in the dock: assumed guilty unless proved innocent, under intense pressure, on the defensive. There are very few people who can look relaxed in that position. Michael Portillo Read Quote
Few people have heard of John Hawkshaw, the engineer responsible for Brighton’s sewers, but he also built the Severn Tunnel and parts of the London Underground system. Such figures, largely forgotten now, conceived an infrastructure that was perfect in its fine detail and intended to last for a century or more – as it has. Michael Portillo Read Quote
They say travel enables you to encounter your opposite. If this is true, I think I may have met mine in a shepherd’s hut in Transylvania. Michael Portillo Read Quote
The advantage of trains over planes is that there is much less hassle. You can get up from your seat and stroll about; you’re more likely to meet people, and, particularly if you’re making a long journey, you can actually see the terrain. Michael Portillo Read Quote
My favourite British line is the West Highland line. It was built across moorland where no one had succeeded in building a road. So everything in that area is there because of the railway line. Michael Portillo Read Quote
