The Interview Game - on this the birthday of this blog

1. Which is your favourite stretch of the Thames and why?

i’m particularly fond of the southside of the thames from
the tate modern down to the london eye...
partly for the tate modern & the eye themselves, the national film theatre and the whole of the south bank... the bookstall under waterloo bridge and the skaters underneath the south bank, but mainly because of the beach that you can get down to at lowtide, the solitary feeling right there in the centre of the city, loads of people walking along the thames path and just you, or maybe one or two others, picking your way across the sand, being that close to the river... finding things the tide has left...
also the way the stairways into the water look at hightide or in between, the way the waves cover then reveal the stone steps of the two stairways down from outside the tate modern...

2. Why do you mainly read books written by men?

a partial answer is that i am a man and therefore i resonate better with other men, except that this isn't born out by my preference for female friends and also my liking for non-english (but male) writers who i resonate with better than i resonate with english (like myself) writers...

another partial answer is that there are (probably) more books written by men out there, men being better represented in the world over women... a symptom of the patriachal society that we still live in...

but this is only part of the story, i tend to get into authors and try and read as much as i can by that author... i'm always looking out for new writers to get into but it's quite a slow process as i work through the writers i currently love, and it's true that they're all men at the moment, richard ford, haruki murakami, william maxwell, w g sebald, john berger... i had a setback recently when i tried to read an isabel allende book that disappointed me, she being a writer i had previously loved, although i could still rescue her, it seems that her books since she moved to america are below par, but her books from chile (is it chile where she's from?) are excellent, how many books did she write before america though, have i read them all?

i've read some great women writers in the last year or so and some of them could get onto my favourite's list, the book i last read - the ice is singing by jane rogers was excellent and i'll be delighted to find anything else by her, mrs dalloway was fantastic and i may try another virginia woolf soon, susanna clarke, barbara kingsolver and maureen duffy were each great, maybe i'll check out more by them...

but it takes awhile for us dinosaurs to haul ourselves into the future and frankly it's bad enough women being able to publish books without me having to read any of them...

3. What is the most unusual thing you have witnessed on the disused railway line?

i like watching graffiti artists working on the disused railway, but this has happened more than once so not so unusual. i witnessed the sunrise one bright morning recently from a vantage point on the railway,
unusual for me that was, i’m guessing the sunrises every day so not so unusual for the disused... i saw three tree huggers yesterday which was pretty unusual, but the most unusual thing i've witnessed on the disused railway was a mosaic pressed into the mud that i found in late april of this year... i was investigating the twisting side paths & i came upon it, a mosaic made from lots of little pieces of broken china, in the shape of a circle with a heart in the middle,
i went back yesterday to try and find it again, i followed the same path i'd walked back then and found the site, i could tell where it was from the scattered pieces of china that lay about... sad that it's no longer there in it's emblematic form, but who knows how long it lasted, it was made at some point before the 24th of april, and it was broken at some point before yesterday...

4. If you were to compose a personal ad in the LRB what would it say?

(i found this particularly hard as the quality of personal ads in the London Review of Books is so high...)

scruffy pianist, cheap, own beard & teeth, seeks rich patron to keep him in the manner to which he has become accustomed, must be female, tolerant, beautiful, eccentric, ordinary, plain, some poetry appreciation preferred.


5. If you had to have dinner with either Julie Burchill or Tony Parsons who would you choose? (Staying at home with a sick headache is not an option)

to be bored by tony parsons or to be found boring by julie burchill... what a choice...
having lost sight of both of my potential dinner dates for awhile i had a look on the web for a taste of them, tony parsons is just as dull as I thought he might be, (i’ve never read any of his books), he now seems to pass himself off as a spiritual guru offering telephone conferences on his astral thoughts... now it could be that he’s a deeply perceptive commentator on our sick western world and the path of quietness... maybe.. but julie burchill is so going to be better company, funnier, a little too fond of the sound of her own voice probably, and it wouldn’t be the most relaxing of dinners, but julie has it... somewhat reluctantly...

there, now wasn't that a longish interview? i seem to be able to rattle on a fair bit... thankyou very much to ganching for the perceptive questions, a conversation about heimat3 would be nice if you're up for it soon...

The Official Interview Game Rules

1. If you want to participate, leave a comment below saying "interview me."

2. I will respond by asking you five questions - each person's will be different.

3. You will update your journal/blog with the answers to the questions.

4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.