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Photograph by Philip Oltermann
Philip Oltermann spoke to Ollie Brock for the Granta Podcast about English bathrooms and German car engines, and how his experience as an outsider became the nexus of his forthcoming book.
To listen to the podcast, either click on the player below, or visit our iTunes page, where you can subscribe to make sure you receive every episode.
Photograph by Philip Oltermann
‘Feelings can be very obscure but numbers never lie.’
Kevin Brazil on metrics, obsession and fitness.
‘An intense workout is an ecstasy of punishment packaged as self-improvement.’
Mary Wellesley on exercise, ritual and Barry’s Bootcamp.
‘I was not good at sports because I would not do sports because I did not have the body for sports because I would not do sports.’
Saba Sams on girlhood, embodiment and avoiding sports.
‘Following United rarely brings me any great joy and most often it depresses me. If I could disengage, I would.’
Jonny Thakkar on Manchester United.
‘I deployed my body against an opponent like a blunt and effective instrument.’
John Patrick McHugh on playing Gaelic football.
Philip Oltermann is an editor on the Guardian's comment desk, and the author of Keeping Up With the Germans: A History of Anglo-German Encounters.
More about the author →‘I love that image. Me flying over Germany, throwing sex bombs into people’s minds.’
‘Some stories begin with an incident, or a set of enigmatic circumstances, or a scene indelibly witnessed, or the relationship of unlike temperaments, or even something as gossamer as a mood. And then there is the kind of story that is rooted in an idea.’
‘Like most wars, this was a war of the young.’ Thomas Kilroy on his parents’ experience of the Anglo-Irish War and the Irish civil war.
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