Nick Hornby

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 10:08

The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and three, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

Mike Costaway this week is a writer. Life started a bit late for him. By his mid-thirties, he didn't have a lot to show for himself, having drifted through Cambridge into teaching and then into freelance journalism. So he decided to write a book, a personal memoir, about the one thing that really interested him and had given him support when everything else fell away, and that was football. The book, Fever Pitch, quickly sold hundreds of thousands of copies, is now sold a million or more. The novels High Fidelity and About a Boy followed, also both made into successful films, the first transferring the author's usual setting of Holloway N7 to Chicago. His books are engaging, funny, chatty, and intimate. People forget they're written at all, he says, and of course I'm striving for that effect. He is Nick Hornby. Amazingly arrogant, I suppose you could say, Nick, to decide, having done not a lot with your life, that you're going to write your first book and it's going to be a kind of autobiography.

Nick Hornby1:25

Yes. Um when I was writing it and it's just you and a computer screen, it all seems to make perfect sense. But of course the moment you see it in hard covers you think what the hell was I doing and why did I think anyone would be interested in this?

Presenter1:39

But how did the idea come to you? I mean, at the end of the day, of course, the the kind of disappointments and the victories of a football team are a a wonderfully rich metaphor for life, aren't they? Did you think that at the time, or did you just think, I know a lot about football, so that's what I'll write about?

Nick Hornby1:54

Well, there were two things. One was that I'd been reading a lot of American memoirs. There were a couple of wonderful books published in the 1980s. One in particular, This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolfe, which again is a memoir by someone you might not have heard of. He was a short story writer, but he'd had this extraordinary life. And I loved the book. I'd never seen this before. It's not really a strain in English writing. I don't think that people kick off with a memoir. But the other really crucial thing was that I had therapy and

Nick Hornby2:26

What tended to happen was that there's this awful moment when you begin therapy each week when the therapist says, Well, how's your week been? Or how's your weekend? And you know, there's a sort of terrible silence, you never know what to say. And I always used to say it was great, Arsenal won 2-0, or it was rubbish, got beat. And after about a year of this, she said, Why do you make the same stupid joke at the beginning of every therapy session? And we actually started to talk about it then. And it had never occurred to me that my obsession with football at the time had any relevance to anything at all. I thought it was just really some kind of quirk. But when she did get me to talk, I ended up talking a lot about my childhood and my father, and it was more fruitful than anything else we'd tried.

Presenter3:12

But you could not have known in that moment that if you were going to put all that down it was going to appeal to someone more than just sports fans. I mean it it was going to become a kind of manifesto, a Bible.

Nick Hornby3:23

Well, the idea was that it would be an attempt to explain for those who didn't necessarily understand what what made people do this.

Presenter3:33

Explain to women, perhaps. More than to men themselves. Perhaps men didn't need to know why they did it.

Nick Hornby3:38

The way the book ended up working, and of course I couldn't know this, was that women read it as an explanation and men read it as a kind of vindication. It was as if they recognized themselves, and it was as if the men were standing behind me and the women were

Presenter3:46

They recognize themselves.

Nick Hornby3:51

Opposite me, as it were. And of course, there are lots of women interested in football and lots of men who aren't, but broadly speaking, those are the the two camps.

Presenter3:52

And

Presenter3:58

We'll have more, but let's have your first record, first of all, what's that?

Nick Hornby4:01

This is Wagner from The Ring Cycle, no it's not, it's Bruce Springsteen Kitty's back.

Presenter4:07

And why do you want it?

Nick Hornby4:09

I've been doing a lot of book tours over the last few years and I think one of the things I need from music, probably at all times but especially on book tours, is energy. And this is one of the most energizing records I know.

Speaker 34:27

Take it.

Speaker 34:29

Kids says

Presenter4:50

Bruce Springsteen and Kitty's back. Music to pump you up by. I I presume you can lower yourself quite easily at any point.

Nick Hornby4:58

Yeah, lowering is not a problem.

Presenter5:00

Lowering is what you do. Um it's very difficult reading about you to identify exactly, Nick, when the desire to write began. The desire to read there, you know, the voracious appetite for reading. But when did you really think I want to be a writer? Was there a specific moment?

Nick Hornby5:16

probably at university. I think the only job I applied for during university was to write for the New Musical Express or Melody Maker. I can't remember. I didn't get the job anyway.

Nick Hornby5:27

But there was a specific moment later on when I was teaching where I had an idea for a play or a story that I thought was so kind of compellingly good that I knew I finally I would have to try and write it.

Presenter5:41

It was all about finding that voice, finding the right voice. I suppose

Presenter5:45

And it is a very different voice, a very new voice. People say you've invented a new genre of literature. I suppose one does think of Salinger's Cater in the Rye really as being.

Nick Hornby5:55

Well, I think that's still the model for first person narration, which is what I I like to do most, I think. I suppose it's trying to imagine this this conversation that you're having with a reader, and and for me my writing is conversational, and it's really trying to find a way of getting the rhythms of conversation into prose.

Presenter5:57

Mm

Presenter6:01

Most

Presenter6:14

But does that get tougher as you get older and more successful because essentially what you've done is become less of an ordinary bloke?

Nick Hornby6:22

I think that one can still recognize what is going to matter to people at various stages of the world.

Presenter6:29

Still got the comment.

Nick Hornby6:31

Yeah, I don't even know if it's necessarily a common touch, but um what one is capable of looking at what's happening to oneself and thinking versions of this are happening to other people. I mean, maybe not exactly the same thing, but versions of it.

Presenter6:45

Pick on number two.

Nick Hornby6:47

Record number two is Rod Stewart and You Wear It Well which I can never hear without thinking of my school days and we were all big Rod Stewart fans at school.

Speaker 36:56

I had nothing to do on this hot afternoon but to settle and watch my night.

Speaker 37:04

I bet mean and tough.

Speaker 37:08

Forget me, you were once, man.

Speaker 37:11

But I blew it without even trying.

Speaker 37:15

Now I'm eating my heart out, trying to get a letter through.

Presenter7:24

Rod Stewart and you Wear It Well, remembers of being a teenager at Maidenhead Grammar. Was it a traditional, sort of, strict grammar school?

Nick Hornby7:31

It was. It became a a comprehensive while I was there. But yes, a a sort of traditional boys.

Presenter7:38

And were you well behaved or were you endlessly put in detention?

Nick Hornby7:41

I think I was cheeky, and that tended to get me in more trouble than anything else.

Presenter7:47

What kinds of punishments did you get?

Nick Hornby7:47

And just punch.

Nick Hornby7:49

Well, we had a a fantastic English teacher to whom I owe an awful lot, a guy called mister Stanley.

Presenter7:56

They never have Christian names, do they? No, no, they never have Christian names. Mr. Stanley, right. Stan.

Nick Hornby7:57

No, they never have crystal.

Nick Hornby8:00

In fact.

Presenter8:01

Stand a man.

Nick Hornby8:02

And he was kind enough to keep an eye on me and he used to pull me aside and give me books that the others weren't reading. But if we talked or if we forgot anything, we were given incredibly long lines. He wrote these on the blackboard on the first day of class. And if we talked, we were told to write out 25 times, my natural verbosity is in direct antithesis to the effective consummation of my academic career. So, you know, if you talked, he said 25 natural verbosities. And if we forgot something, books or pens, he told us to write out 25 failure to brings. And that went, failure to bring to English classes the necessary materials for working will result in my rewriting these lines a considerable number of times in order that my memory be refreshed. I'm afraid it's probably indicative of my school career that I can remember both of them so clearly.

Presenter8:57

Absolutely. But the defining thing of your childhood, if we take fever pictures, if we swallow it whole, was the divorce of your parents. That obviously was central to everything that you became.

Nick Hornby9:11

Well, it probably was. I mean, the significance for me was this thing of my dad taking me to football in the absence of anywhere else to take me.

Presenter9:16

Yeah.

Presenter9:19

Hm. They're sort of Saturday afternoon what shall we do'cause I'm persona non grata and cannot walk across the threshold.

Nick Hornby9:25

Pretty much, yes, exactly. And it was a complete coincidence. I mean, I had no interest in football before my dad suggested that we go out of desperation one afternoon. And it happened to be Arsenal because they happened to be playing that afternoon and he could get tickets. So that's where we went. And the moment I got there, I knew I'd be coming back a lot. And was it.

Presenter9:45

And was it it itself, was it the football itself, or was it the whole ritual?

Nick Hornby9:49

The whole thing, the whole ritual, I I just um

Nick Hornby9:53

And I think I wrote in Fever Pitch that being brought up with women, you know, I lived with my sister and my mum and and later my grandmother, that you you go into a place where especially at the time, which was predominantly men, I suppose uh that was bound to have an effect. So yes, I can remember cigar smoke and pipe smoke and bad language and noise and uh there were all sorts of things that

Nick Hornby10:17

Rang my bell, I think.

Presenter10:18

But what is interesting is how much and I think I suppose my question really is, how much did it become the backbone of your life, which reading you is what one believes, that this was absolutely the thing on which you hung everything?

Presenter10:31

It wasn't just an obsession, it wasn't just an addiction, it was where you had to go in order to be happy.

Nick Hornby10:38

Or miserable, in fact. Most of the time. To live, to live.

Presenter10:40

Yeah.

Speaker 310:41

At least to

Presenter10:41

To live, to live.

Nick Hornby10:44

Yes, I mean life in between matches seemed like a bit of a waste of time. Especially I'd say between the ages of about eleven and fifteen. It was incredibly intense. It really was traumatic losing games and um you know

Nick Hornby11:01

The rest of the family knew to keep out of the way.

Presenter11:02

But do you think that was for its own sake, you know, football's own sake? Or was it really because, you know, you were a bit lost in life because, as I say, of the divorce?

Nick Hornby11:13

I think it probably was and and I became very strongly identified with the team at school, you know, so that all the all the teachers would know what to say on a Monday morning and and all the other kids would know what to say. I seemed to represent Arsenal much more than other kids represented their teams.

Presenter11:30

Hmm, you were the footballing nutter.

Nick Hornby11:32

BS.

Presenter11:33

Yeah.

Presenter11:34

Record number three.

Nick Hornby11:36

This is French Canadian reggae, it's called Complante pour Saint Catherine by Kate and Anna McGarrigal.

Presenter11:42

And why do you want this?

Nick Hornby11:44

I love it. I if I was on a desert island I would like some harmony in my music and it really reminds me of university as well.

Speaker 311:52

Moj me prominent catrina, profitor.

Speaker 312:10

Ya l'enta confer la politi gir, faitan le confé mussi.

Presenter12:19

On Plante Por Santa Catherine by Kate and Anna McGarrigal. So, Nick Hornby, out of school, after university, Cambridge, reading English, but you didn't play much part in the academic side of life there, I don't think it was football pub?

Nick Hornby12:32

No. Uh football, pub, music, pretty much. Girlfriends. Um that was that was about it.

Presenter12:36

I

Presenter12:39

Then you became a teacher, um and we saw Colin Firth, of course, playing you as a teacher in the film of Fever Picture. I take it that was a pretty realistic portrait. I mean you had a lot of hair then and you were devastating looking and

Nick Hornby12:50

As this is radio, I can say that yes, even now Colin Firth looks like me.

Presenter12:53

Yeah.

Presenter12:56

And he was, in that film, remarkably unambitious as a teacher. Uh that was you, was it?

Nick Hornby13:02

Yes, absolutely. I mean, I knew I was really in the wrong job and I sort of did the best I could for two or three years, but um I I knew that

Nick Hornby13:12

writing was going to come up at some stage. I have to say I did have this sort of fantasy because I was such a mediocre teacher that when Fever Pitch came out and I was invited, I taught in Cambridge and I can remember going up to Cambridge and thinking, Wouldn't it be great if there was a kid in the front of the queue that I I used to teach? And I got there and of course there was one.

Nick Hornby13:31

I couldn't quite remember his name, and and I said, Who shall I sign this to? and he said, Oh, it's Henrik and and then I remembered and I said, I used to teach someone called Henrik and he said, Did you?

Nick Hornby13:43

He said, That's funny, it's'cause it's not a very common name and I said, No, it was you. I used to teach you He had absolutely no recollection. So uh that was the kind of impression I made, I think, on him.

Presenter13:53

He disappeared into the woodwork.

Nick Hornby13:53

Okay, this is

Nick Hornby13:55

Yeah. He was he was happy to read the books, but he he wasn't dining out on me having taught him.

Presenter13:55

Seems happy.

Presenter14:00

Then you went into freelance journalism. W what did what kind of stuff did you write?

Nick Hornby14:05

Almost exclusively book reviews. This wasn't something I'd ever really intended to do. I I'd begun by trying to write scripts because I didn't know whether I could write prose and everything seemed to sound like bad university essays. So I thought well I'll cut the prose out and just try and write the dialogue. But I didn't really know what I was doing and they were somewhere in between radio plays and cino cinematic blockbusters, I think, rather awkward in between genre.

Presenter14:30

But the family were worried about you, I gather. They were, you know, worried that you'd even never own an overcoat, let alone buy a house, I think.

Nick Hornby14:36

Yeah.

Presenter14:38

And and you, as you said in the beginning, ended up going into therapy because why? You were making such a hash of it or?

Nick Hornby14:45

I just felt sort of rather aimless, and had been aimless for some time.

Presenter14:50

So you went just to talk to somebody about being aimless?

Nick Hornby14:54

being stuck um in patterns of behaviour, I think. And um, you know, I think it did help. It makes you recognize the messes that you make for yourself as opposed to the ones that are imposed on you.

Presenter15:06

And indeed in your case it it prompted it sparked the whole writing of Fever Pick, so there you are.

Nick Hornby15:10

Well, it certainly it certainly um paid for itself.

Presenter15:13

Would you go as far as to say if you hadn't gone into therapy you'd never have written Fever Pitch?

Nick Hornby15:18

Yes, I think I would. I don't think I'd have made that connection, or maybe not made it at the right time.

Presenter15:23

Next piece of music.

Nick Hornby15:25

This is The Love You Save by the Jackson Five. I used to go to a club in Kentish Town every single Friday night, and partly this club was an inspiration for things in high fidelity, and this is another energy record as well.

Speaker 315:51

I don't think it's slow, but someday you'll be falling off. Better stop without your sleep and be it all.

Speaker 316:00

Both ways before you caught me. You're having more than yourself.

Presenter16:07

The Jackson Five and The Love You Save. So you went on to write your first novel proper after that High Fidelity which was published in 1995 and features another of your obsessions which is music and the record collection and so on. But this time the obsession is the background to the story isn't it? It's not it's not the foreground. What it's really about is men's and women's relationships.

Nick Hornby16:27

Yeah, that was the the impetus for the book and in fact the music thing came right at the end when I was thinking what kind of job I wanted to give this guy and I thought, Oh, well he might as well work in a record shop because I know a lot about music but

Presenter16:41

But is that because you identified that that was an an area not much written about how guys felt within a relationship?

Nick Hornby16:48

Yes, uh I mean it partly came from my own tastes in literature, which is I prefer reading, I suppose, the domestic novel and one of my big inspirations was Anne Tyler, who never set a book outside Baltimore, and all her books are about families. And yet there didn't seem to be many men writing that that kind of thing. So it did seem to me that the coast was clear at the time and and uh I had a territory all to myself.

Presenter17:15

Which is

Presenter17:16

in many ways explaining, as we were saying earlier, to women what makes men tick.

Nick Hornby17:21

Yes, it

Nick Hornby17:22

I think with High Fidelity there was a sense that there's a certain kind of man that can appear very morose and um uncommunicative, but there actually is some kind of mental energy in there and cogitation and it doesn't really come to the surface. So that was why it was written really, I suppose, as an an internal monologue.

Presenter17:42

What about moving on to About a Boy and the protagonist there, Will Freeman, who's the most shallow kind of guy. I mean, he's he hasn't got the kind of emotional depth of Rob in high fidelity, has he? He's uh you know, he's fast cars.

Nick Hornby17:56

He's fast cast. He's cynical and sort of slick, and yeah, Rob, I think, is a much more likable character. Yes.

Presenter18:03

Yes. I mean Will is a sort of real-life cardboard cutout, isn't he?

Nick Hornby18:08

Yes, and and the idea was that if you could put somebody like that, force them into a connection with somebody who who might actually uh need their help in some way, how would they respond?

Presenter18:20

The boy.

Nick Hornby18:20

Yeah.

Presenter18:21

Yes. But again, what are you saying? I mean, obviously there's the moral tale, of course, that in the end it's the child who teaches the man how to grow up, as it were. But I mean, are you trying to reassure these kind of G Q shallow cardboard cut out guys who are out there?

Nick Hornby18:36

Oh no, I've got absolutely no interest in reassuring GQ cardboard cutter. Are you trying to worry them? I wouldn't mind worrying them a bit, yeah.

Presenter18:41

Are you trying to worry them?

Presenter18:45

But they're out there, aren't they? There's a lot of them about.

Nick Hornby18:48

Well, a friend told me an interesting story, which was that he was interviewed for a a women's magazine about his attitude to women and attitude to sex, and he said all the right kinds of things. You know, he sort of quite right on and thoughtful and so on and so forth. But the women's magazine couldn't bear to illustrate his interview and interview with all these men with real people, that they actually chose pictures of models. And so the idea that you could find a man who looked like this and thought these things, this is the lie that magazines are trying to sell. And Will is perhaps the truth behind the lie in that way.

Presenter19:29

Next piece of music.

Nick Hornby19:31

This is Fatu Yo by Tore Kunda, which is one of my son Danny's favourite records.

Speaker 319:38

Bele, putumbele, putum bele, oma mi seda, o mami cas, butum bele, o mami sela, o mami cas, butum mele, fatu yo, sija jala no, dona afra fatu yo.

Speaker 319:56

See Jajala Fatu Fai Fai Fatu Fatu Klema Bunjo Fatu Yo Si Ja Jala No

Presenter20:06

Fatu Yo by Tore Kunda, a song for Danny, your son, who's ten now, um and Danny is autistic, which is a very broad term. I mean, where is he on the spectrum of autism?

Nick Hornby20:17

He's quite severely autistic. He doesn't speak. And the autism, as you say, is a peculiar thing. There are kids who don't recognise their own parents and right through the spectrum to kids who are a bit odd when they study maths at Oxford. But the main problem with Danny is his sleep in his stomach. He has a bowel condition. It's the bowel condition that Dr. Andrew Wakefield identified, the man who's tried to make a link between MMR and autism.

Speaker 120:33

Mm.

Presenter20:49

This the the injection, measles, lumps, etc.

Nick Hornby20:52

Yes, which I certainly don't think is responsible for Danny's autism, but I do know that the bowel condition exists and that doctor Wakefield's work was very valuable. So it it's a great pity that he's been rubbished by so many people.

Presenter20:58

Condition

Presenter21:07

I p I mean, I know that you and and Virginia, um, his mother have spent a a lot of time setting up support systems for others in your area, haven't you? And you've put a lot of money into it now, now now that you've been able to do that.

Nick Hornby21:20

Well, a a group of parents set up a school called Treehouse.

Nick Hornby21:24

That's really been where a lot of

Nick Hornby21:28

Time and charitable energy has gone over the last few years. Yeah.

Presenter21:32

And how much does that help? I mean, i has Danny improved as a result of being there? What can he do now that maybe he couldn't do a few years ago?

Nick Hornby21:41

Well, he's incredibly sociable compared to how he was, and he used to be completely terrified of walking into a room full of people that he didn't know. You know, they're gradually teaching him to play and to copy sounds and to copy because autistic kids don't

Presenter21:56

Boom.

Nick Hornby21:56

Copy.

Presenter21:56

By definition they don't and not and but also they're antisocial, aren't they? They're locked up in themselves by definition.

Nick Hornby21:56

By definition

Nick Hornby22:01

Well, that's I think

Nick Hornby22:04

Perhaps one of the myths of autism in in the same way that people always ask me what he's good at, you know, because uh autistic kids are supposed to have some amazing talent, as in Rain Man and so on, and that's sort of one in a thousand. He's Danny's actually incredibly affectionate, um on his own terms and when it suits him, but um there is a sense of connection between him and other people and significant adults in his life and also now significant other kids.

Speaker 122:13

Hmm.

Speaker 122:15

Okay.

Presenter22:32

Hmm.

Presenter22:33

But of course your marriage to his mother, Virginia, uh ended in divorce. How much I mean, is it possible to say was that to do with the fact that Danny was so demanding and and therefore his existence was very demanding on your marriage?

Nick Hornby22:47

the pressure that a disabled child puts on a marriage means that

Nick Hornby22:51

Fault lines that might not otherwise have been revealed become revealed.

Nick Hornby22:57

quite quickly and maybe without

Nick Hornby23:00

A child with a disability, you could kind of never have to examine the problem. But when you do have that kind of situation, then

Nick Hornby23:09

You start to learn things about it, yeah.

Presenter23:11

And therefore you're a part. I mean

Presenter23:16

Does that make you have any kind of sense of guilt that you've been able to sort of move away? Although you see a lot of Danny, don't you?

Nick Hornby23:23

No one's moved away, really. There's a a a sort of small hill between us, so Danny swaps from one house to the other frequently, you know, once once or twice a day.

Nick Hornby23:35

I think in that way the guilt doesn't really come up because I don't feel like an absent father.

Presenter23:40

And obviously you've been able to provide and pay for support systems and so on and and helpers and so on. It it it does seem also that there is a link though between the existence of Danny and the problems that he brings to life and and your success, almost as if fate has played a hand in this, because I know that you've

Presenter24:00

Made enough money that you've been able to assure his future, which makes things better, makes you feel better, presumably.

Nick Hornby24:05

Yeah, it did feel very odd, you know, more or less the first time in my life that I had more money than I knew what to do with in that uh uh don't have terribly sophisticated tastes and um and no sooner had it started to come in than Danny was diagnosed and and you did think, Oh, I see, I see what that's for.

Presenter24:27

Hmm.

Presenter24:28

Record number six.

Nick Hornby24:30

Record number six is by Joni Mitchell. It's called Night Ride Home. It's a fairly, I think, obscure Joni Mitchell song, but my second son, Lowell, happened to be born during this song.

Speaker 324:42

Once in a while, in a big blue moon, there comes a night like this.

Speaker 324:49

But some surrealists invented this Fourth of July and I'm at home.

Speaker 325:02

Pull the girls and patter, pillar, patter.

Speaker 325:08

So

Presenter25:11

Night Ride Home by Joni Mitchell and Memories of the Birth of Your Son Lowell who's now

Nick Hornby25:18

He's ten months.

Presenter25:19

Ten months old.

Presenter25:22

And this is with a new partnership. But you're not married. You said you wouldn't get married again. Your own divorce.

Nick Hornby25:23

Yeah.

Presenter25:28

It distressed you as well, didn't it?

Nick Hornby25:30

Anyone who wasn't distressed by divorce, I think I would uh

Presenter25:33

But you know what I mean by you know what I mean, that that that the idea of divorce, the idea was something again that was alien to you. And maybe it does hark back obviously to that.

Nick Hornby25:44

I never really anticipated going through one myself. And I suppose one of the things I feel about marriage is that I think to a large part depends on knowing what's going to happen. And if you really don't know what's going to happen, and of course you can't, then I think it's very difficult to make those sorts of promises.

Speaker 325:59

Oh yeah.

Presenter26:07

But that's what making that promise is all about, isn't it? It's a sort of commitment of faith. Oh, faith.

Speaker 326:13

Oh face.

Presenter26:16

I see. Um y your book, of course, How to Be Good is about the breakdown of a marriage. There's a guy there, the husband, David, at one point point starts

Presenter26:24

Giving everything he has away to the needy, putting his uh money where his liberal mouth is. Is there something of you in him? Is that what you did?

Nick Hornby26:34

Uh I don't I don't think so. I mean one of the things that interested me about the story and the situation was the whole idea of us as kind of comfortable middle class people knowing when we have enough and and what to do about it. And uh I think as as we all uh get a bit richer uh certainly certain sections of society get richer while the rest get poorer um th the these responsibilities seem to be more and more

Nick Hornby27:03

pronounced and troublesome and um I suppose the book came from that.

Presenter27:07

There is an implication that life gets tougher, that Nick Hornby thinks life gets tougher as you get older, not easier.

Presenter27:14

That's what I take from it anyway.

Nick Hornby27:14

Uh

Nick Hornby27:16

Yes, I I I think that it would be a view that's shared by a lot of people.

Presenter27:20

Hmm.

Presenter27:21

And it obviously hasn't necessarily got any

Presenter27:25

Clearer or straighter or easier for you because you you're still in a a kind of analysis, aren't you? You still.

Presenter27:33

Not at the moment.

Nick Hornby27:33

Not at the moment. Uh I did go again around about the time of my divorce. Um back back to analysis. And I think one of the hardest things is to find

Presenter27:37

Hmm

Nick Hornby27:45

appropriate responses. And one of the things that analysis does is maybe to help you decide what's appropriate about how you feel and what isn't appropriate about how you feel. And if what you're feeling is not

Nick Hornby28:02

possibly appropriate or proportionate, then what's that about?

Presenter28:06

You're going to have to give me an example.

Nick Hornby28:09

Yeah, that's that's where I think I'll I'll shut up.

Presenter28:13

Record number seven.

Nick Hornby28:15

This is a band I've discovered relatively recently, a band called Marat. The first time that there was a New Yorker festival I was contributing to The New Yorker, I we got a New Yorker car to drive us from the middle of Manhattan to Aspury Park, New Jersey. Um he was a bit shocked'cause it was about two and a half thousand a car, but we went to basically went to a club to see this band and this particular song reminds me of that night especially.

Speaker 328:48

My heart is a bumps in the street with nothing to eat and the dirty hands cut up

Speaker 328:54

My heart is a squirrels in the dark, late Sunday evening dodging the raindrops My heart is a barrel on fire The brokers burning ashes at a telephone wire My heart is the avenue wind rattling street signs with the village

Presenter29:10

My Heart Is The Bums on the Street by Murrah, correct.

Presenter29:15

And all this stuff y that you write, Nick Hornby, is written in a flat on Highbury Hill overlooking the football ground.

Nick Hornby29:23

I can see the football ground, I wouldn't say it overlooks it.

Presenter29:25

And a flat which is there just for that purpose for writing in. It's your office kind of thing, so where you do your thing.

Nick Hornby29:30

Yeah.

Presenter29:31

With enormous regularity.

Nick Hornby29:33

Yes, pretty much. I mean, I I treat it as a day job and I I go there for ten o'clock and come back at six o'clock.

Presenter29:40

And you smoke endless cigarettes and drink endless tea and hope to write something.

Nick Hornby29:45

Yeah.

Presenter29:45

Yeah. Where's the displacement activity? You know, when you just sit there and it's not happening, what do you do?

Nick Hornby29:50

What do you do?

Nick Hornby29:51

Internet, email, um games of solitaire on the computer.

Presenter29:56

I

Nick Hornby29:56

That sort of thing. There's a lot of that goes on.

Presenter29:58

I see. And how often do you go to the football itself these days?

Nick Hornby30:02

I don't miss home games. It's become slightly more difficult because of book tours and things, but I do live so close to the ground that it actually isn't much of an interruption to an afternoon.

Presenter30:14

And what about the great dilemma that is always quoted in connection with you? And I don't know whether it still would be a dilemma for Nick Hornby aged, what are you, forty five?

Presenter30:23

Yeah.

Nick Hornby30:23

Forty six

Presenter30:24

46. What would you do if the woman in your life fainted st sitting next to you at this important cup winner's cup or whatever it might be? What would you you know, do you pick her up?

Nick Hornby30:30

At this

Nick Hornby30:35

Yeah.

Nick Hornby30:36

Yeah

Presenter30:39

What do you do? Do you help her up or do you carry on watching this vital moment of the game?

Nick Hornby30:43

Well, I'd really like to think that the days of trampling over her while she lies there are over for me.

Presenter30:51

But you're not quite sure.

Nick Hornby30:52

No, no, I'm sure.

Presenter30:54

Last record.

Nick Hornby30:55

If I

Nick Hornby30:57

Was on a desert island I'd want some volume, um I'd want something very, very loud. And this is Going Back to Cali by L. L. Cooljay, and it's very loud.

Speaker 331:17

Okay.

Speaker 331:18

Then up the set and push play.

Speaker 331:22

Cali, Cali, Cali, I'm coming back to Cali, yeah y'all, I don't think so. I'm coming back to Cali, Cali, Cali, Cali

Speaker 331:33

Yeah.

Presenter31:36

Going back to Kali by Elel Cool. LL Cool J.

Nick Hornby31:40

Yeah, well cool.

Presenter31:40

Oh yeah.

Nick Hornby31:41

Ladies love cool james, I believe.

Presenter31:43

Hi, LL Cool J from the soundtrack of Less Than Zero. It's real kind of rude boy stuff, isn't it? This is what we like today.

Speaker 331:51

Yeah.

Presenter31:52

If you could only take one of those eight records, which one would you take?

Nick Hornby31:57

Uh well, that means I have to exclude one of my children.

Presenter32:03

Ah, well putting those two aside.

Nick Hornby32:04

Putting those two aside, I'd take Kitties Back by Bruce Springsteen. He's been a very consistent presence in my life.

Presenter32:12

And it'll give you energy on this distance.

Nick Hornby32:14

I'll give it an achievement.

Presenter32:15

Um what about your book as well as the Bible and Shakespeare?

Nick Hornby32:18

I want to dib in the Bible and take Bleak House instead. I think I'd take Barnaby Rudge because I haven't read it and I want to read all Dickens and Barnaby Rudge seems to be the one that people put off till last.

Presenter32:32

And what about your luxury?

Nick Hornby32:34

I'm going to take an iPod.

Presenter32:36

A what?

Nick Hornby32:36

An iPod.

Presenter32:37

Explain.

Nick Hornby32:37

Explain. An iPod is uh uh an MP three player. It's probably doesn't help you much. No. But um it contains four thousand songs. Well in fact now I think the new one is seven and a half thousand songs. So

Speaker 332:44

Yeah.

Nick Hornby32:51

I've blown your programme out of the water.

Presenter32:52

What do you have, Ralph? I mean what's the point of eight desert islanders?

Nick Hornby32:54

Yeah.

Speaker 332:54

Yeah.

Speaker 132:55

There's

Speaker 332:56

Let's throw

Presenter32:57

Should I allow this?

Nick Hornby32:57

I think you'll have to ban it after me.

Presenter33:01

All right, I'll ban it after you and you can answer the letters. Nick Ornby, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thanks.

Nick Hornby33:05

Nothing is here.

Speaker 133:14

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.