Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A writer who became a household name in Britain with his book 'A Year in Provence', about his experiences living in France.
On the island
Eight records
CarusoFavourite
This just reminds me of that hot night in August in Orange.
It just gets me um very stimulated and and when I finish writing I like to play something a bit noisy to get myself back into the real world.
I always have this fascination for people who can make their fingers move so nimbly across piano keyboards. And I I love the Goldberg variations, Bach's Goldberg variations, and this is this is one of them.
I think the lyrics are absolutely wonderful and I think the way Brian Ferry sings it is uh very interesting and nice.
its terrific music for storms.
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
which I think is distinguished by some lyrics that are unlikely to be found anywhere else, particularly a line that says She left me a note by my discarded sock, which I find and every time I listen to this record I f I fall about, and it reminds me of Tony.
I love to sit outside at the end of the day and look at the sky and have a drink and open the doors and the windows and have the music come out of the house. It's the most wonderful relaxed feeling that I can possibly think of, and to have this sort of sound coming out of your windows on on a still evening is magical, I think.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:01What is your defence against the charge that you've drawn a Disney-esque portrait of Provence and attracted too many tourists?
The first thing that I've been accused of is destroying Provence. ... in none of them have I ever found any evidence to support this terrific, sweeping generalization that I've revealed a secret part of the world.
Presenter asks
5:50Is it true that you gave up a lucrative advertising career to go and renovate a barn in Provence?
No, I mean well I I did give up a perhaps a potentially extremely lucrative career, but it was Almost twenty years ago I did that, um, when I was a foolish lad of about thirty-five. ... I gave it up to write. I didn't actually care at that time where I was writing, I just wanted to get out of the business of advertising because I'd lost, you know, any enthusiasm that I'd had for it.
Presenter asks
7:06Was it Wicked Willie that made everything possible?
The hooligan with with whom we live, we men live. Uh yes, and that wasn't even my idea, it was it was a friend of mine called Greg Jolliffe who um I was having lunch with once. And he said I've got this idea which I have this little character which I really try and get into magazine strip cartoon format, but the magazines won't take it, because it's too saucy. And I looked at it and I thought it was hysterical, because it is a very funny way of expressing a true conflict that many men have between reason and passion or emotion or whatever you like to call it, lusts probably.
The keepsakes
The book
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
I love it because it's the most beautifully written piece of work, even in English. I don't know it must be fantastic in Italian, but even in English it's a book I reread every year.
The luxury
I think what I would really like to have to sustain my optimism is a menu from favourite restaurant in Paris called Chez Lamili Louis. which I go to whenever I go up there. It was the most wonderful food, it was a lovely place, and I think if I stared at that for long enough it would give me the resolve to go and duck the sharks and see if I could strike out and hit land on the other side of the ocean.
Presenter asks
16:16What had you done to merit being identified as one of the young meteors in 1967?
Probably not enough, but um I I think at at the time I was one of the youngest managing directors of an advertising agency in London. ... after a couple of years when the Americans went back to America there was they looked around in desperation for someone who could speak English and there I was so I think they made me managing director.
Presenter asks
20:13Have there been times when you felt you couldn't cope and wanted to come back to Britain?
Never, never that. I mean, there are times when it has been infuriating, frustrating, all of that. But I think Encouraging us was the fact that we knew we'd made the right decision, we knew we'd come to the right country, we loved the country, essentially we loved being there, and in life you have problems, uh they just happen to be particular. French problems, if we'd come back to England we'd have had English problems, so there was never any desire to sort of backtrack.
Presenter asks
23:25How disappointing was it that the television version of A Year in Provence was a flop?
The thing that was really disappointing to me was the relish with which it was attacked, and I didn't think it deserved that. I find it very difficult to judge it from a dispassionate point of view because it's a dramatization of a bit of my life, so I'm not the sort of typical viewer. But I was appalled at the the savaging that it got.
“Some of them I have read, and in none of them have I ever found any evidence to support this terrific, sweeping generalization that I've revealed a secret part of the world.”
“He taught me how to write clean prose and and not to be self-indulgent. He was a wonderful teacher, and in fact very kind to me, because he used to take me aside after office hours occasionally and say, You know, the the secret of it is, dear boy, He said, The secret of it is just perseverance, perseverance, perseverance. There is no secret to success as long as you persevere.”
“I just said, Well, why don't they say, you know, something like Nice One, Cyril? And this fellow looked at the camera. And he he had a really rather interesting and and a round face, and he just waved and he said, Nice one, Cyril. And that was only thought that sort of quite pleasant way of ending up. And with literally within, I suppose, two or three weeks of the commercial running, you started to hear people at Tottenham Hotspur, I think it was in those days, screaming at Cyril Knowles, who I think was one of their big stars.”
“Every day. Every day. Yeah, I really do. I I really feel extraordinarily lucky and very content.”
“It has been worth it. It has been worth the inconvenience and the um discomfort of the early days, and to some extent the worry, the financial worry of the early days. It has been worth all the lousy pieces in the press. It has absolutely been worth it.”