Time Out at 40

By city | A-Z

A
Ai Weiwei (artist, Beijing)
'I often wonder how people in China seem able to forget their past so easily'

Amitabh Bachchan (actor, Mumbai)
'I like Mumbai’s cosmopolitan nature. I like the way it embraces everyone and feeds them and looks after them'

Amit Saigal (music impresario, Delhi)
'A lot of bands are finding their own sound. Most importantly, they now have a following for their own music and identity'

Andrey Arshavin (footballer, St Petersburg)
'There’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s our city, after all!'

Anjali Gopalan (LGBTI activist, Delhi)
'When you’re working in the West, you’re pretty sure people are either straight, gay or bi. Here, that wasn’t the case'

Alexy Chadov (actor, Moscow)
'Maybe it’s too rough, but I still like it' Feature continues

B
Bernard Khoury (architect, Beirut)
'What people call the vulgar and the crap are the future'

Bernie Eccleston (F1 executive, Dubai and Abu Dhabi)
'We get a lot of magazines to look at but Time Out’s a little bit special, you know'

Billy Corgan (musician, Chicago)
'If you'd asked me 20 years ago whether I would have chosen to be in this position, the answer would be: No'

C
Calixto Bieto (theatre director, Barcelona)
'The press was out to get me, except for Time Out, which published an extremely favourable review'

Clive James (writer and broadcaster, Sydney)
'There’s a coffee bar near my place called "The Café Nero"; I thought it was the only one'

D
Dana International (musician, Tel Aviv)
'If I must choose one moment that touched me the most, it would be hearing my mother cry over the phone'

David Tang (businessman, Hong Kong)
'I did actually harbour the ambition to become a monk'

Donna Ong (artist, Singapore)
'I hope I have conducted myself well within the arts community. No backstabbing!'

E
Elif Şafak (writer, Istanbul)
'I prefer to present characters who are flawed and troubled, and who have weaknesses and inferiorities'

Ellie Saab (designer, Beirut)
'The big problem, the really dangerous one for Lebanon, is that all the young generation leave'

Etgar Keret (writer, Tel Aviv)
'Saying whatever comes to mind in the army is not necessarily the best way to obtain a weekend leave'

F
Frankie Dettori (jockey, Dubai and Abu Dhabi)
'Everything is five star, minimum – hotels, buildings, restaurants, entertainment'

G
Gia (musician, Beijing)
'We had our own style of brash bitch-pop, which everyone suddenly went crazy for'

Gordon Ramsay (chef, Dubai and Abu Dhabi)
'I feel like pulling my pants down and running around stark bollock naked'

H
Henk Schiffmacher (tatooist, Amsterdam)
'I feel a great connection with this marked human being, the tattooed person'

I
Ivan Marchuk (artist, Kiev)
'I like the original Kiev, which was not made by hand'

J
Jaume Plensa (artist, Barcelona)
'I like to see Barcelona from above because I think that the city has an African texture'

Jay-Z (musician, New York)
'Her hair was blowing. The rain was hitting her face and her outfit was, well…'

Jing Quek (photographer, Singapore)
'I’m most proud of shooting America’s Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards'

Joana Vasconcelos (artist, Lisbon)
'But I’m not saying what I’m going to do'

John Woo (filmmaker, Hong Kong)
'A real hero in my definition doesn’t need to use machine guns. He has more skill than that'

Jorge Palma (musician, Lisbon)
'I’m from the days when you could have a smoke in the cinema'

Jorge Silva Melo (filmmaker, Lisbon)
'Lisbon 2008 would be nice if it weren’t a nightmare'

L
Lateefa bint Maktoum (curator, Dubai and Abu Dhabi)
'If I want to be updated on what’s happening, I grab Time Out'

Liza Boyarskaya (actor, St Petersburg)
'After living in Moscow for half a year I almost went mad'

Lupe Fiasco (musician, Chicago)
'You want the answer for the poor Chicago, the well-off Chicago or the scared-for-your-life Chicago?'

Laila Tyabji (craft revivalist, Delhi)
'Wear your Levis and Nikes and sport a blockprinted and hand-embroidered kurti on top'

M
Marcos Baghdatis (tennis player, Cyprus)
'It isn’t the easiest thing in the world to leave home as a 14-year-old and have to live on your own in a foreign country'

Mariska Majoor (activist, Amsterdam)
'I already come across tourists who have started to perceive Amsterdam as less easy-going'

MF Husain (artist, Mumbai)
'I knew I was going to be a painter and if I wanted to really do it, then I would have to come to Mumbai'

Michalis Hatzigiannis (musician, Cyprus)
'There isn’t a record industry crisis, there’s a decent song crisis'

Michael Bloomberg (Mayor of New York)
'The people of New York City won’t tolerate that kind of behavior any more. There are still idiots who go kill each other'

N
Noor Adlan Bin Zulkifli (Paralympian, Kuala Lumpur)
'At Jalan Masjid India, I met my new friend there and it has changed my life'

Nuri Bilge Ceylan (filmmaker, Istanbul)
'I thought that a jury with Sean Penn would naturally opt for more political films'

O
Ohad Naharin (choreographer, Tel Aviv)
'This reply is not an expression of mental indolence but a protest against the attempt to set one event above the rest'

Q
Quim Monzó (writer, Barcelona)
'Do you think I’ve got an illness that only lets me see one colour? You say the strangest things'

R
Rineke Dijkstra (photographer, Amsterdam)
'I’ve always thought of myself as a photographer, not an artist'

Roger Ebert (film crirtic, Chicago)
'…seeing the Sun-Times at the head of the street, and going in for my first job interview'

S
Salman Rushdie (writer, Mumbai)
The Bombay of my childhood was celebrated for its tolerant spirit. It may have lost some of that spirit by now'

Sergey Shnurov (musician, St Petersburg)
'Petersburg was originally intended to be the city for outsiders; it used to re-educate them'

Sezen Aksu (musician, Istanbul)
'People in our profession are driven by an irrepressible instinct of being noticed in the first place'

Spiros Pisinos (musician, Cyprus)
'There’s beauty in scientific thought and analytical thought in the exploration of music'

Stefanie Sun (musician, Singapore)
'Do I need to don a skin-tight outfit? Some lycra? Change in a phone box?'

Sulaiman Al-Fahim (entrepreneur, Dubai and Abu Dhabi)
'I understand that Time Out is a zestful magazine that caters to a young readership'

T
Tina Fey (comedian, New York)
'It seems funny that anyone would call me a sex symbol. It feels like an elaborate prank'

Tony Kushner (playwright, New York)
'We could hear high-heeled boots and screaming above our heads while we rehearsed'

V
Vivienne Tam (designer, Hong Kong
I really believe in my own culture. This is where I grew up, and this is who I am'

Vladimir Polunin (clown, Moscow)
'Moscow is currently a world leader in foolery'

Vladimir Sorokin (writer, Moscow)
'The Soviet times are rapidly coming back, and everybody’s talking about totalitarianism again'

W
Wladimir Klitschko (boxer, Kiev)
'When I enter the boxing ring I know how and what I want to get'

X
Xander Zhou (designer, Beijing)
'I can go a bit wild. We usually always end our nights out with karaoke'

Z
Zubin Mehta (musician, Mumbai)
'A lot of my dreams still take place in Bombay. My youth keeps coming back to me'

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