My book tour began to look up when I found myself being probed by Natasha Kaplinsky. I’ve got a thing about women who are expecting. I come over all Stonehenge
I’ve had to put myself about this week, to the tune of 22 interviews. Surely anyone who resisted buying my novel in hardback can be left in no doubt by its sudden availability in cheap and cheerful paperback? (It’s the Primark version of the haute couture item: shoddy arse-wipe paper, but the words are the same.) Resist it at your peril. Publicists these days are so zealous that I wouldn’t be surprised if they began doing house-to-house searches. Any semi-detached in a reasonably affluent area that failed to produce a copy of Murder Most Fab upon demand would be marked with a pink cross and the inhabitants sent to Guantanamo Bay to reconsider their reading habits.
Given my self-confessed self-absorption, you'd think talking about myself non-stop for a week would be a dream occupation, but of all the interviews, surprisingly, I enjoyed only three. I'm just not as interesting as I thought I was. No fewer than 12 of the grillings were conducted in just two hours. I was confined to a small padded cell in the bowels of the BBC at Portland Place, and every ten minutes I was connected to BBC Somewhere Dull and Regional. Apart from a cheery woman called Charlie at BBC Solent, it was a bit like speed dating without the possibility of a shag at the end of it.
Why I can't just play the game and be bright and breezy, get my plug in and be done with it, I don't know. In such circumstances, I can't help being either monosyllabic or contrary. There must be a part of me that enjoys an uncomfortable silence and a quiver of fear in the voice of an incompetent interviewer, even at the expense of precious book sales. I have to get my pleasures where I can, I guess.
That was the naff end of the scale. Things began to perk up when that rising star, George Lamb, toyed with me like an adolescent tiger cub on BBC 6 Music. Faced with his expensive white cotton shirt unbuttoned to the navel, I turned into one of the more coquettish members of Girls Aloud. (Not a particularly appealing way to carry on when you’re a 49-year-old homosexual, but it’s too late now.) I was then whisked to glamorous Wimbledon where, for a mere ten-minute chat with Simon Mayo, you’re rewarded with a Centre Court ticket. My view of Rafael Nadal’s serve, unfortunately, was blocked by the umpire’s ridiculously pompous six-foot chair. I told officials who I was, but they refused to move it.
The next day I found myself in Isleworth, ready and willing to be probed on Channel 5 News by Natasha Kaplinsky. She's pregnant, and I've got a bit of a thing about women who are expecting. I come over all Stonehenge. As I explained to Natasha, as we sat side by side in the make-up room, I've had a not particularly useful psychic ability all my life: I know when a woman is pregnant, sometimes before she knows herself. I'd spotted her condition weeks before the official announcement.
As a child, I would occasionally sit upright and sniff the air when neighbouring housewives popped in for coffee. Sure enough, this signified that they were up the duff. It seems I can sense the presence of an unborn child, like the scent of jasmine in the breeze.
And there’s more. A sudden hardening of my stomach muscles informs me when someone I care about is in labour. A couple of years ago I was driving through Deptford when I passed a poster featuring Davina McCall advertising a hair product. My abdominal twinges started at once. I left her a voice message saying I was sure she was pushing out her third-born as I spoke and wishing her luck. A couple of hours later I got a call back. I had been spot-on, and she had just played the uncanny message back to her midwife.
It’s a gift. I should write a book about it. In fact, I’m going to write a book about any old rubbish, just so I can go on George’s show again.
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