Journalist/Broadcaster/Author
“I’ve been to many places in the world where I am not recognised.” Surely not? After all, we are talking with Michael Palin, an Englishman in his late 60s who has had more than one bite of a cherry that is singularly known as “fame”. First, there was his integral role as part of the … Read more Interview: Michael Palin
So which Julian Cope do you remember? The pop star Cope of Teardrop Explodes, the Liverpool post-punk band that enlivened Top of the Pops with reassuringly left-of-centre gems such as Treason and Reward? The solo Cope wrapped around a gravity-defying mic stand-cum-lectern as he crooned his solo hits, World Shut your Mouth and … Read more Interview: Julian Cope
According to his online profile for The Guardian – the English broadsheet for which he writes on a regular basis – Paul Morley is a “rock’n’roll journalist who is from London.” As they said with some frequency in the days before Google – surely shome mishtake? “A rock’n’roll journalist from London?” ponders 56-year-old Morley, very much … Read more Interview: Paul Morley
“I live quite an isolated life in some ways, and it can be interesting to come out and talk to people. I don’t read reviews until some months after the books are out and have been reviewed. You have to take them as they come, don’t you? Publishing books is a form of boxing but … Read more Interview: Sebastian Barry
“I love writing, and I have since I was a teenager. I’m very lucky that I enjoy it,” says Joe O’Connor. You can tell he enjoys it, too. What makes O’Connor different from some other writers, however, is not so much the profligate nature of his output, but the fact that his quality control levels … Read more Interview: Joe O’Connor
Dublin-based writer Roddy Doyle is having none of this celebrity lark; he keeps himself to himself, his business is his and his alone, and if you’re asking him for the name of his favourite restaurant you’d swear you can hear him chuckling at the absurdity of the question. Doyle seems the type of person … Read more Interview: Roddy Doyle
Here is the conundrum: how does anyone write coherently about a band that has heretofore been mythologized and almost embalmed in prose that’s more parable than purple? If the band is Manchester’s Joy Division, and if you are that band’s chubby mid-50s, former bass player Peter Hook, then the answer is crystal-clear. “The interesting … Read more Interview: Peter Hook