Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Author and journalist.
On the island
Eight records
to remind me of when I was small … used to come out of people's windows when I went for a walk
With Me Little Wigger Wagger in My Hand
one of the things I'm very interested in, always enjoyed enormously, is musicor, Victoria Musicor
Another Hundred People Just Got Off of the Train
a reflection of my fascination for cities … another hundred people just got off of the train
Symphonie Espagnole, Op. 21Favourite
just for the sheer joy of listening to it
Hamlet: 'To be, or not to be' soliloquy
on the island I couldn't bear not to hear the human voice, especially the voice of a man I've been in love with for at least thirty years
It Was Just One of Those Things
every love affair … has a special song … I've been married to the same man for twenty years, and this song's very special to us
Quintette du Hot Club de France
Django Reinhardt / Stéphane Grappelli
going back a bit again to the sounds of my childhood
Concierto de Aranjuez (second movement)
I do like string instruments … maybe I'd find bits of wood and gut lying around on the beach, I could make a guitar and teach myself
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:37What part of the country do you come from?
Oh, I'm a Cockney. I'm a Londoner. Born in the square mile. I'm very proud of it.
Presenter asks
3:10What did you want to be [as a career]?
Oh, then oh, no question I was going to be the greatest actress the world had ever known.
Presenter asks
7:19Why do [hospital romantic novels] have a particular appeal to women?
I wouldn't say it was only women, quite honestly. Lots of men do read them. … The appeal of the hospital novel. It's a closed society. It's life and death drama … There's a return to the womb in a sense. There's a childlike situation when you're a patient, and that's comforting. And of course there are strong sexual overtones as well. … All children play doctors and nurses, don't they, when they're small, and we all know why they're playing it. All that boiled up together, I think, adds up to a fairly seductive whole.
Presenter asks
9:05The keepsakes
The luxury
a large hot bath with bath salts, expensive soap, and soft white towels
after a long hot bath like that I can cope with almost anything.
How did [the two serious novels] do?
Reasonably well, but not commercially so. That is, they were respectably reviewed in respectable journals and they were published abroad, which is always gratifying. But they didn't exactly set the till ringing and let's not pretend they did. The tax man did not rub his hands with glee when they came out.
Presenter asks
14:10How do you write — dictate straight on the typewriter?
Not fiction. Fiction comes out of the end of my fingers onto a typewriter, an electric one, which does type some very odd words sometimes. Non-fiction I can dictate in fact. I dictate an enormous number of the letters that I answer for my problem page. But I use both, you know, I'm reasonably flexible.
Presenter asks
17:26[You issued a statement] you're not going to leave any money to your children. That was an interesting idea.
Well, it's not as mean as it sounds. … I felt this very strongly because it seems to me that the best things always are the ones you work for yourself and that the best legacy any of us can give our children is not money, but a solid grounding in education and being cared for and fun and enjoyment … so that when the time comes for them to go out on their own, they can go out on their own. I just don't feel that having a lot of money is good for anybody.
“If I'm really going to be on my own. I'm a talker, you see. I do like people and I love to be talked back to. In fact, my friends say that my epitaph ought to be shut up and listened. And there I'll have to, won't I?”
“Well, I was a bit too pregnant to go on. It was looking a bit peculiar in a tight-waisted uniform.”
“If you write a book you're really communicating, you do want to know that people out there are going to read it. And the only way you know that people are reading your book is by the number of copies that sell.”
“What I'm aiming for is not great literature. … What I'm aiming to do is to tell a story that will keep people reading, that makes them a bit breathless.”
“I don't say no to anything.”
“Please, could I have a very large bath with oyster-shaped soap dishes and an eternal supply of hot water and bath salts and expensive soap and soft white towels, because, you know, after a long hot bath like that I can cope with almost anything.”