At 9am as I am preparing to leave home the phone rings. It is from South Africa. An interview. Previously organised; Phone interviews are slightly deranged. The interviewer
seemed to know little of me. It’s lightly perturbing or is it slighty perturbing. Lightly. Slightly. She’s been given the job. She’s doing it. It’s my job to answer as best I can. I do.
I travel through hackney past everywhere to the Southbank Centre threw my bike into
the office hiked up to the Westminster Pavilion on 6th Floor. David Buckland and Peter Gilbert he who made the film Hoop Dreams. They were setting up camera and mic’s. I sat in the chair and began the interview. It was about Cape Farewell a trip to the Arctic in a ship with twenty artists whom included Laurie Anderson, Jarvis Cocker and the like. I have a moment of clarity interpreting the experience and at last, all these months
later, a fitting end to the journey.
At 1pm I meet Alex Wheatley in my office, the london based author, and we have a long discussion about writing and he decides on a one person show about his life which is full to bursting with amazing stories which he has already honed through his many visits to schools as a novelist. I think I am going to enjoy working with him. He has some incredible stories.
At 2pm I sit and meet Lorna Rose Simpson a producer at the south bank. At 3pm and for the next two hours I sit looking out to the thames and read a large portion of Jefferey Deavers roadside Crosses. I am reviewing it tomorrow in front of the author on Simon mayo’s book review for BBC Radio five. How do I tell an author….. I’m lso reviewing George Pelecanos The Way Home. He shall be there too. At 5pm I meet Shan Maclellan and Lucy Macnab to talk about Rime of The Ancient Mariner.