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{{Short description|British writer and critic (1954–2016)}}{{EngvarB|date=May 2014}}{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2022}}

factoids

| birth_place = Edinburgh, Scotland2016106df=y}}| death_place =London, England| occupation = Columnist, author| spouses = {{ublCressida Connolly1983|reason=divorced}}Amber Rudd1995|reason=divorced}}}}| partner = Nicola Formby (1995–2016; his death)| children = 4}}Adrian Anthony Gill (28 June 1954 – 10 December 2016) was a Scottish journalist, critic, and author. Best known for his food and travel writing, he was also a television critic, was restaurant reviewer of The Sunday Times, wrote for Vanity Fair, GQ, and Esquire, and published numerous books.After failing to establish himself as an artist, Gill wrote his first piece for Tatler in 1991 and joined The Sunday Times in 1993.NEWS,weblink The Guardian, London, 'My opinion is worth more than others', James, Silver, 7 May 2007, 24 April 2012, JOURNAL, Murguía, Verónica, 26 February 2017, Memorias de Adrian, Memoirs of Adrian,weblink es, La Jornada (Semanal Arte y Pensamiento las Rayas de la Cebra), 26 February 2017, Known for his sharp wit, and often controversial style, Gill was widely read and won numerous awards for his writing. On his death he was described by one editor as "a giant among journalists." His articles were the subject of numerous complaints to the Press Complaints Commission.

Early life and education

Gill was born in Edinburgh to an English father, Michael Gill, a television producer and director, and a Scottish mother, Yvonne Gilan, an actress. He had a brother, Nicholas.NEWS,weblink Yvonne Gilan obituary, The Times, 5 September 2018, 13 July 2022, subscription, NEWS,weblink Michael Gill, The Times, 25 October 2005, 13 July 2022, subscription, The family moved back to the south of England when he was one year old.NEWS,weblink The Guardian, London, A is for Adrian, Sabine, Durrant, 15 December 2005, 23 April 2010, In 1964, he appeared briefly in his parents' film The Peaches as a chess player.NEWS, Grigor, Murray, Michael Gill,weblink 11 December 2016, The Guardian, 28 October 2005, Gill was educated at the independent St Christopher School, Letchworth, Hertfordshire, and later recalled his experiences at the school in his book The Angry Island. After St Christopher's, he moved to London to study at the Saint Martin's School of ArtSt. Martin's School recordsNEWS,weblink AA Gill: Sunday Times critic dies after cancer diagnosis, 10 December 2016, 10 December 2016, BBC News, and the Slade School of Art, nurturing ambitions to be an artist. Following art school Gill spent six years "signing on, trying to paint, until one day he realised he wasn't any good".NEWS,weblink London, The Observer, Lynn, Barber, The secret diary of Adrian Gill, aged 45, 6 January 2004, At the age of 30, having abandoned his ambitions in art, he spent several years working in restaurants and teaching cookery.

Writing

Gill began his writing career in his thirties, writing "art reviews for little magazines". His first piece for Tatler, in 1991, was an account of being in a detox clinic, written under the pseudonym Blair Baillie. In 1993, he moved to The Sunday Times where, according to Lynn Barber, "he quickly established himself as their shiniest star". He continued to write for The Sunday Times until shortly before his death in 2016.Gill was also a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and GQ.WEB,weblink My opinion is worth more than others, James, Silver, 7 May 2007, The Guardian, He wrote a series of columns for GQ, on fatherhood and other subjects.WEB,weblink AA Gill News and Features, British GQ, He also wrote for Esquire, where he served as an agony uncle, "Uncle Dysfunctional".WEB,weblink AA Gill On... Feminism, 20 July 2013, Collections of his travel writing were published as AA Gill is Away (2002), Previous Convictions (2006) and AA Gill is Further Away (2011), his Tatler and Sunday Times food writing as Table Talk (2007) and his TV columns as Paper View (2008).WEB,weblink AA Gill obituary, Stuart, Jeffries, 10 December 2016, The Guardian, He wrote several books on individual restaurants and their cuisine – Ivy (1997), Le Caprice (1999), Breakfast at the Wolseley (2008) and Brasserie Zedel (2016).He also wrote two novels which were generally poorly reviewed – Sap Rising (1996) and Starcrossed (1999). Starcrossed was given the Literary Review{{'}}s Bad Sex in Fiction Award.NEWS, Kennedy, Maev,weblink Literary pretensions and cigar help peerless AA Gill scoop Bad Sex Prize, The Guardian, 25 November 1999, He wrote books studying England – The Angry Island (2005), and the United States – The Golden Door (2012).In 2014, Gill won an Amnesty International Media Award, and a Women on the Move award for a series of Sunday Times Magazine articles on refugees in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Jordan and Lampedusa.WEB,weblink Media Awards: Amnesty announces its 2014 winners, www.amnesty.org.uk, WEB,weblink Women on the Move Awards Ceremony 2014, Women on the Move Awards, 12 December 2016, 6 April 2018,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20180406043210weblink">weblink dead, In 2014, he also won the "Hatchet Job of the Year Award" for his scathing review of Morrisey's Autobiography.WEB,weblink Hatchet Job of the Year goes to AA Gill for Morrissey broadside, Alison, Flood, 11 February 2014, The Guardian, In 2015 he published a memoir, Pour Me.WEB,weblink Pour Me: A Life by AA Gill review – from drunk to doyen of Fleet Street, Tim, Adams, 15 November 2015, The Guardian, On his death, The Sunday Times editor Martin Ivens described Gill as "the heart and soul of the paper" and "a giant among journalists".WEB,weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20161210171331weblink">weblink 10 December 2016, limited, live, Sunday Times columnist AA Gill dies aged 62, Independent.co.uk, 10 December 2016,

Controversies

Gill's acerbic style led to several controversies and complaints from public figures during his career.

Wales

In 1997, in The Sunday Times, Gill described the Welsh as "loquacious dissemblers, immoral liars, stunted, bigoted, dark, ugly, pugnacious little trolls". His comments were reported to the Commission for Racial EqualityNEWS,weblink Writer reported over "ugly little trolls" Welsh jibe, BBC News, and used as an example of what was described as "persistent anti-Welsh racism in the UK media" in a motion in the National Assembly for Wales.NEWS,weblink 'Anti-Welsh racism' protest, BBC News, The CRE declined to prosecute, saying that Gill "had not meant to stir up racial hatred." Gill's comments led him to become the subject of the song "Little Trolls" by Welsh alternative rock band Manic Street Preachers, the B-side to their 2001 single "Ocean Spray". In the song, Manics' lyricist Nicky Wire reflects Gill's comments on the Welsh back at him, referring to him as a "Spiteful twisted unforgiven, sad and inverted and stunted, retarded ugly balding old man".

Isle of Man

Gill's feud with the Isle of Man began in 2006 with a review of Ciappelli's restaurant in Douglas. Gill wrote that the island:{{blockquote|managed to slip through a crack in the space-time continuum […] fallen off the back of the history lorry to lie amnesiac in the road to progress […] its main industry is money (laundering, pressing, altering and mending) […] everyone you actually see is Benny from Crossroads or Benny in drag…. The weather's foul, the food's medieval, it's covered in suicidal motorists and folk who believe in fairies.NEWS,weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110604092747weblink">weblink dead, 4 June 2011, The Times, London, Ciappelli, 22 January 2006, 23 April 2010, A A, Gill, }}The review was attacked in the Tynwald, the Manx parliament, with House of Keys member David Cannan demanding an apology for the "unacceptable and scurrilous attack".NEWS, Caine, Howard, Gill by mouth,weblink 11 December 2016, BBC News, 17 February 2006, Gill made further comments regarding the Isle of Man in his Sunday Times column on 23 May 2010,NEWS,weblink London, The Times, Our couch potato Olympic mascots, AA, Gill, 23 May 2010, when he described its citizens as falling into two types: "hopeless, inbred mouth-breathers known as Bennies" and "retired, small arms dealers and accountants who deal in rainforest futures". His comments were made in the aftermath of Mick Jagger's suggestion that drugs should be legalised in the Isle of Man.NEWS,weblink BBC News, Jagger 'legalise drugs' Manx call, 20 May 2010, Gill added that "If ... they become a hopelessly addicted, criminal cesspit, who'd care? Indeed, who could tell the difference?"WEB,weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20161220100103weblink">weblink dead, 20 December 2016, Isle of Man Today, Anger after Times writer blasts Isle of Man as 'in-bred', 26 May 2010, 10 December 2016,

England

In February 2011, Gill described the county of Norfolk as "the hernia on the end of England".WEB,weblink Video: Norfolk residents hit back at restaurant critic AA Gill, Norwich Evening News, In December 2013, his column just before New Year's Eve, was the result of a night on the beat in Grimsby and Cleethorpes and was heavily critical of both towns where Grimsby is "on the road to nowhere" and Cleethorpes is full of "hunched and grubby semi-detached homes".NEWS,weblink Locals hit back at Sunday Times columnist AA Gill's assessment of 'dull' Grimsby and 'horror-film empty' Cleethorpes, Grimsby Telegraph, dead,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20150924041023weblink">weblink 24 September 2015, Humberside Police and Crime Commissioner Matthew Grove described Gill as "A tweed-suited, Mayfair-based writer, whose only experience of the North of England was his visit to Cleethorpes and his regular trips salmon fishing in Scotland".WEB,weblink Locals hit back at Sunday Times columnist AA Gill's assessment of 'dull' Grimsby and 'horror-film empty' Cleethorpes, Grimsby Telegraph, 31 December 2013, 10 December 2016, dead,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20150924041023weblink">weblink 24 September 2015,

Killing of a baboon

Gill reported in his Sunday Times column in October 2009 that he shot a baboon dead, prompting outrage from animal rights groups.NEWS, Gill, A. A.,weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20161220084852weblink">weblink dead, 20 December 2016, AA Gill reviews The Luxe, The Sunday Times, 25 October 2009, 11 December 2016, {{subscription required}}NEWS, Booth, Robert, AA Gill shot baboon 'to see what it would be like to kill someone', The Guardian, 26 October 2009,weblink 26 October 2009, London, "I know perfectly well there is absolutely no excuse for this", he wrote, and that he killed the animal to "get a sense of what it might be like to kill someone, a stranger". He went on to state, "[T]hey die hard, baboons. But not this one. A soft-nosed .357 blew his lungs out".

Clare Balding

In his review of Clare Balding's 2010 Britain by Bike TV programme, Gill referred to the presenter as "a big lesbian" and "a dyke on a bike".NEWS, Davies, Caroline,weblink Clare Balding complains to press watchdog over 'dyke' jibe, The Guardian, 30 July 2010, 11 December 2016, NEWS,weblink Clare Balding complaint over sexuality is upheld, BBC News, 17 September 2010, 17 September 2010, NEWS, Gill, A. A,weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20160507042205weblink">weblink dead, 7 May 2016, Humping in tents: a great British tradition, The Sunday Times, 25 July 2010, 11 December 2016, {{subscription required}} Gill's Sunday Times editor, John Witherow, responded to Balding's complaint: "In my view some members of the gay community need to stop regarding themselves as having a special victim status and behave like any other sensible group that is accepted by society. Not having a privileged status means, of course, one must accept occasionally being the butt of jokes. A person's sexuality should not give them a protected status".Dissatisfied with the response, Balding's subsequent complaint to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) was upheld: they considered use of the word "dyke" to have been "pejorative" and "used in a demeaning and gratuitous way".WEB,weblink Complainant Name: Clare Balding, Press Complaints Commission, 17 September 2010, 11 December 2016, The PCC considered publication of Gill's piece to be "an editorial lapse" for which "the newspaper should have apologised at the first possible opportunity". In his defence, The Sunday Times pointed out that in the five years prior to Balding's, the PCC had received 62 complaints involving Gill but none had been upheld.NEWS,weblink Clare Balding complaint over AA Gill column upheld, 31 July 2013, Plunkett, John, 17 September 2010, The Guardian, London,

Mary Beard

Reviewing Mary Beard's BBC television series Meet the Romans in April 2012, Gill wrote that the academic "should be kept away from cameras altogether".John-Paul Ford Rojas "Mary Beard hits back at AA Gill after he brands her 'too ugly for television'", Daily Telegraph;, 24 April 2012 Beard in response accused him of being "frightened of smart women" and suggested "maybe it's precisely because he did not go to university that he never quite learned the rigour of intellectual argument and he thinks that he can pass off insults as wit."WEB,weblink Mary Beard hits back at AA Gill after he brands her 'too ugly for television', The Telegraph, 24 April 2012,

Personal life

Gill had severe dyslexia and consequently dictated all of his writing.NEWS, Barber, Lynn,weblink Let him eat cake, 3 November 2008, 25 May 2008, The Observer, London, Gill was a recovering alcoholic who stopped drinking at the age of 29. On 1 April 1984, after consuming two bottles of vintage champagne with his father on the train to Wiltshire, he checked himself into the Clouds House addiction treatment centre in East Knoyle. He followed an Alcoholics Anonymous "12-step plan" to recovery and, in tribute to the organisation, began using the name "A. A." Gill professionally.NEWS,weblink AA Gill obituary, Stuart, Jeffries, 10 December 2016, The Guardian, 11 December 2016, In a 2014 article in The Times, Gill said that he had "continued to smoke about 60 a day" until the age of 48."WEB,weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20150813223522weblink">weblink dead, 13 August 2015, Life at 60, The Sunday Times, From 1982 to 1983, Gill was married to the author Cressida Connolly. From 1990 to 1995, he was married to Amber Rudd, a financial journalist who later became Home Secretary and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.WEB,weblink UK Government website, London, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, The Rt Hon Amber Rudd MP, 2016, 11 July 2016, The couple had two children. He then had a long-term relationship with Nicola Formby, editor-at-large of Tatler, for whom he left Rudd in 1995, and who appeared in his column as "The Blonde".NEWS,weblink The Times, London, Tugga, 21 August 2005, 23 April 2010, AA, Gill, They had twins born in 2007.NEWS,weblink Let him eat cake, 3 November 2008, Barber, Lynn, 25 May 2008, The Guardian, London, Gill's younger brother Nick, a Michelin-starred chef, disappeared in 1998, telling Gill: "I'm going away now . . . I'm not coming back." Gill spoke of his sadness at not knowing what happened to Nick, and wrote that he looked for him whenever he visited a new city.WEB,weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20161220093327weblink">weblink dead, 20 December 2016, I look for my lost brother in every city, says AA Gill, The Sunday Times, 12 December 2016,

Death

On 20 November 2016, Gill wrote in his Sunday Times column of his engagement to Formby, and also disclosed that he was suffering from "the full English" of cancer.NEWS, Appleyard, Bryan,weblink AA Gill: I'm elated to get married – oh, and I'm ill, The Sunday Times, 20 November 2016, 20 November 2016, {{subscription required}} In his final article in the Sunday Times Magazine, published on 11 December 2016, he disclosed that he had a primary lung tumour with metastases to his neck and pancreas, and detailed the medical treatment that he was receiving, with a commentary on his experiences as a terminal cancer patient in the National Health Service.WEB,weblink New Trial Shows Drug Similar To One Denied AA Gill Can Help Lung Cancer Patients, Radowitz, John von, UK, Press Association Science Correspondent PA for HuffPost, 13 December 2016, The Huffington Post, 17 January 2017, Gill died in London on the morning of 10 December 2016, at the age of 62.WEB,weblink A. A. Gill, Who Gleefully Skewered Britain's Restaurants, Dies at 62, 13 December 2016, The New York Times,

Bibliography

{{Incomplete list|date=October 2015}}

• Sap Rising (1996), Doubleday, {{ISBN|978-0-552-99679-2}}
• The Ivy: The Restaurant and Its Recipes (1999) with Mark Hix {{ISBN|978-0-340-69312-4}}
• Le Caprice (1999) with Mark Hix {{ISBN|978-0-340-73838-2}}
• Starcrossed (1999) {{ISBN|978-0552778619}}
• AA Gill is Away (2003) collection of travel writing. {{ISBN|978-0-7538-1681-3}}
• The Angry Island: Hunting the English (2005) a book about England and the English. {{ISBN|978-0-297-84318-4}}
• Previous Convictions: Writing with Intent (2006) assignments from here and there. {{ISBN|978-0-297-85162-2}}
• Table Talk: Sweet And Sour, Salt and Bitter (2007) Selection of Gill's writing about food, taken from his Sunday Times and Tatler columns. {{ISBN|978-0753824412}}
• Breakfast at the Wolseley (2008) {{ISBN|978-1-84400-444-7}}
• Paper View: The Best of The Sunday Times Television Columns (2008) {{ISBN|978-0-7538-1768-1}}
• AA Gill is Further Away (2011). Assorted travel writing. {{ISBN|978-0297863809}}
• The Golden Door: Letters to America (Published in the US as To America With Love) (2012) {{ISBN|978-0753829165}}
• NEWS, Gill, A. A., 1, 31 March 2013, Long day's journey into night, The Sunday Times,weblink 12 December 2016,
• Pour Me (2015). Reminiscences about alcoholism. {{ISBN|978-0297870821}}
• Uncle Dysfunctional (2017). Esquire Agony Uncle advice. {{ISBN|978-1786891839}}
• JOURNAL, Gill, A. A., 1, Dec 2012, The parenting trap, Vanity Fair (magazine), Vanity Fair, 628, 110, 112,weblink 2 October 2015,

References

{{Reflist|30em}}

Further reading

• {{Journalisted|aa-gill|A. A. Gill}}
• Talking table with AA Gill – interview from Australian Gourmet Traveller, Jan 2008
• {{IMDb name|1539225}}

{{Authority control}}