A. A. Gill
Adrian Anthony Gill (born 28 June 1954 in Edinburgh) is a British writer and critic who uses the bylines A. A. Gill and AA Gill. He is The Sunday Times' restaurant reviewer as well as a television critic; he is also a Vanity Fair restaurant reviewer. Gill wrote his first piece for Tatler in 1991, and joined The Sunday Times in 1993.
Gill, who has caused offence to various racial groups, was the subject of 62 Press Complaints Commission (PCC) complaints in the five years to July 2010. The PCC upheld a further complaint, in September 2010, that Gill's reference to TV journalist Clare Balding as 'a dyke on a bike' was “pejorative... demeaning and gratuitous".
Life and career
Early life and education
Gill was born in Edinburgh to English parents, television producer and director Michael Gill and actress Yvonne Gilan, and brother to Nicholas. The family moved back to the south of England when he was one year old. In 1964 he appeared briefly in his parents' film The Peaches.
Gill was educated at the progressive independent St Christopher School in Hertfordshire and would later recall his experiences at the school for his book The Angry Island. After St Christopher, he moved to London to study at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design 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". At 30, having abandoned his ambitions in art, he spent several years working in restaurants and teaching cookery.
