Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Best-selling novelist, known for Fatherland and other political thrillers like Enigma and The Ghost.
On the island
Eight records
Mache dich, mein Herze, rein (from St Matthew Passion, BWV 244)
I used to play every night when I'd finished uh the day's writing of Fatherland actually in uh the early nineties.
On the Sunny Side of the Street
my father loved big band music and particularly Tommy Dorsey and I have a great love of uh Tommy Dorsey's on the sunny side of the street which I think the moment you hear those opening chords you're immediately back in uh the Second World War.
The English Concert & Choir, conducted by Trevor Pinnock
I used to play Vivaldi to get myself in the mood for this exam. And it seems to me completely to capture in music the architecture of Cambridge.
Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat (from Guys and Dolls)
I have gone for Guys and Dolls and the great show stopping song with its wonderful lyrics, Sit Down, You Rock in the Boat.
Concerto in F major for 3 Oboes, 3 Violins and Continuo, TWV 44:43
Concentus Musicus Wien, conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt
my uh great joy is Baroque music, and it's the only music that I I find is a stimulus to creativity, and I listen to it a lot.
Everyday I Write the BookFavourite
There was a particular piece of music came out which she drew to my attention and has been our kind of piece of music ever since.
Balthasar-Neumann-Chor, conducted by Thomas Hengelbrock
I think it's one of the most beautiful pieces of music that I know and it does make one contemplate uh mortality, which is what it's supposed to do.
this wonderful piece of music sums up for me these uh family holidays
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:27Why have you never been tempted to stand for Parliament yourself?
I think that I'm at heart a writer and I don't think I'm a very good team player. I have no desire for power, actually. I hate bossing people around and wouldn't want to do it.
Presenter asks
1:52Do you admire politicians?
Admire may not be the right word. Sympathize, understand, see the distorting effects of the trade on human beings and how they have to adapt to it. And of course, part of this entails necessary hypocrisy and deceit. Only r large. I mean, I think we all practise what politicians do, but on a smaller, more private scale we're not caught out.
Presenter asks
3:37Did you come to understand Hitler and understand what it was that so captivated the people at that moment in time?
Yes, I mean I think th as you say, sympathetic is not the right word at all, but an understanding. I think one can understand things about Hitler. For instance, he went through four years right on the front line in the First World War. I mean, with no kind of grief counselling or trauma counselling or whatever. Anyone who who went through that is going to come out of it somewhat strange, I think.
The keepsakes
The book
Evelyn Waugh
the only thing I could take is Scoop which is remains the greatest portrait of our profession that's ever been written
The luxury
I would like, if I could, to have a nightly hot bubble bath or fragrant berth of some sort, because I've found that there are few problems that don't seem better after a good hot bath
Presenter asks
7:28Do you think it shapes the decisions that our politicians make these days, the fact that they are part of that generation that has never been to war?
I think that's very interesting. One of the things that surprised me about Tony Blair, who I knew quite well before he became Prime Minister, was how readily he would engage in war compared to his predecessors who had more experience of it.
Presenter asks
9:06How far back did the fascination with politics begin and why did it begin?
Well, my father was very interested in politics and, you know, one imbibes one's parents' interest in politics. So I think it started then. My father had no interest in football, and neither did I. And politics, in a sense, became our football.
Presenter asks
16:32What advice do you give your children about what they should do?
I wouldn't dream of proffering any advice. That would be a route to humiliation. It's funny, isn't it? I can I'm I can see that my background and odd oddly enough was wonderful in that it gave me I knew where I had to go, you know, I had to sort of get up, get out, get on. And I think it's harder in a way actually if both your parents went to university and you grow up and things are quite comfortable. Where's the spur?
“I think that our generation has not been tested in the way that our parents' and grandparents' generation was, and we'd never had that sense of commonality, of fighting a greater enemy, of all being thrown together. I mean, I'm very relieved, let me hasten to add, that I haven't had to fight, but nevertheless, you feel that there's a part of your personality that's not been explored”
“every day that I didn't have to work in a factory was a day of victory for me. I was playing with a casino's money, and I think that gave me a terrific kind of confidence.”
“when a book starts to form in your mind you often sort of drift off. You wake up in the small hours of the night actually thinking about it. And it is obsessive work. And I think if you weren't obsessive about it it probably wouldn't come alive.”