2:00

writing. What does affect

2:03

your writing then and has that changed?

2:05

I think what I write about has

2:07

changed but my desire to

2:10

write has remained completely constant and

2:13

partly I suppose because I can't do anything

2:15

else and partly because if I

2:17

don't write a certain number of words in a

2:19

given day I feel

2:22

unhappy and unfulfilled and

2:24

this year for instance 2023 I

2:26

mean I finished writing The Sun

2:28

Last Year. I haven't really

2:30

written anything this year and

2:33

it's making me feel very grumpy to be honest. So

2:35

the other day I just started fiddling around and just

2:37

writing the first thing that came into my head because

2:40

I'm so fed up with not writing but

2:42

I suppose the content, the continuing

2:44

themes that you write about they

2:47

have changed a bit and I think when

2:49

you're actually in the process of writing a

2:52

book you don't think about where

2:54

it fits into your life or where it fits

2:56

into your work. You just you

2:58

have something that's passionately interesting to

3:00

you and you try to do

3:02

your best to make it passionately

3:04

interesting to the reader but

3:07

when you look back when I have

3:09

a conversation like this and you're required

3:11

to be rather sort of retrospective

3:13

and look back from this great

3:15

height and this terrible old age then

3:18

you can see patterns in

3:20

what you've written and you can see how they've changed a bit.

3:24

Why is 2023 a year where you

3:26

have written so little? Because

3:29

the first six months were spent on

3:31

editing this book and working on it to make it

3:33

the best it could be and the

3:35

second part of the year has been spent

3:37

publicising it. Right okay so is that always

3:39

the case in advance of

3:41

a book being released? No it's much more intense

3:43

than laborious than it used to be. Well

3:46

I used to work on the typewriter. There'd

3:48

be a great pile of pages which I

3:50

would then get typed by someone who typed

3:52

rather better than I did and then I

3:54

would carry them in a Tesco's bag to

3:57

the office of the publisher and

3:59

they would sort of bring the book out there,

4:01

be sort of minimal editing, and then be a

4:03

sort of interview with the Evening Standard or the

4:05

Racing Post, if you're lucky, and that was it.

4:08

Whereas I've done, I think,

4:12

nine literary festivals, 16 evening

4:14

events, eight podcasts,

4:16

17 interviews. I mean,

4:20

I've just lost count, as well as

4:22

the book was edited. I received editorial

4:24

notes from my things, serving different people.

4:27

So it's just much more

4:29

intensive. Why does it require

4:31

editorial notes from seven different people at this

4:33

stage in your career? I mean, I interview

4:35

a lot of artists, music artists at a

4:37

stage of a career where it seems that

4:40

the more albums they make, the less they

4:42

consult other people about them. I

4:45

think it's partly because I've changed publisher,

4:47

and it's partly just sort of genuine

4:49

enthusiasm on the part of. So my

4:51

literary agents, there were three

4:53

people there had notes, I mean, very

4:56

broad brush. I've changed

4:58

paperback publisher from Vintage to Penguin. I'm

5:00

with the same hardback publisher, Hutchinson, but

5:02

all the personnel had changed during and

5:05

after the pandemic. And I

5:07

think just a lot of people there were very intrigued

5:09

by the book, and they were new to the company,

5:11

and they just wanted to get involved. And also, I

5:13

did welcome these notes, let me say, I mean, a

5:16

lot of them I just ignored, but where

5:18

there was a consensus, you know, you do

5:20

well to think about it. And

5:22

most of the people there are much younger

5:25

than me, they're all in their 30s. You

5:27

know, I'm concerned to reach younger readers, not

5:29

by, you know, humiliating

5:31

myself by some of the equivalent literary

5:33

equivalent of dad dancing, but, you know,

5:36

trying to write something which is interesting

5:38

to all ages. How do you retain

5:40

that humility in terms

5:43

of your creativity when you're so

5:45

well lauded, and so

5:47

experienced? I think that you

5:49

feel that it's partly just this sort

5:51

of imposter syndrome, really, you don't really

5:53

know what you're doing. And

5:56

you never really think I know what I'm doing. And

5:58

the way in which you do it changes all of

6:00

time. And every time you sit

6:02

down to write, the train pulled into the station,

6:04

the man got off the train and he carried

6:06

his heavy bags and got into the car. And

6:09

you think, well, no one's going to believe this.

6:12

There wasn't a train, there isn't a man, there weren't

6:14

any bags, there wasn't a car. You know,

6:16

no one's going to believe this. This is just a

6:18

pile of lies. And I'm a liar. How am I

6:20

possibly going to convince people of this? So

6:23

every time is this sort of new

6:25

challenge. And you do feel fragile and

6:27

lacking in confidence. In fact, I

6:29

think in my earlier books, like

6:32

The Girl at the Old Door, Burt's on

6:34

to some extent, Charlotte Gray, there's

6:36

a lot of descriptive details, especially

6:38

early on. No one

6:40

goes into a room before that room has been

6:42

furnished in quite minute detail and

6:44

shared with the reader. And that's partly

6:46

to convince the reader that such a place

6:49

really did exist. It's a novel. We know

6:51

it's a novel, but trying to tell you

6:53

it was really there. But it's also partly

6:55

to convince you yourself, the

6:57

author, that it's credible, it's real,

6:59

it's full, you know, has

7:01

parquet flooring and heavy velvet curtains or whatever

7:04

it might be. So I

7:06

think that feeling shouldn't go away really.

7:09

And okay, the books have done well,

7:11

and they constitute a kind of shelf

7:13

full now. And I

7:15

would like to think that taken all

7:17

in all there, it's been a worthwhile enterprise, but

7:19

probably none of them is as good as it

7:21

ought to be. But they all have good

7:23

bits in. And I just like to think of them

7:26

as a sort of an entity really, as I mean,

7:28

not everyone likes them. I mean, people are

7:31

very rude sometimes. And so it's never a

7:33

done deal. How do you

7:35

avoid disappearing down a detail

7:37

orientated rabbit hole? I

7:40

think that is a bit of experience, actually,

7:42

I worked as a journalist for quite a

7:44

long time on newspapers. And

7:47

when you go to write as a journalist

7:49

about a sort of fairly complicated topic, what

7:52

you really want to do is drill down and

7:54

get rid of all the preconceived ideas and all

7:56

the misreporting that's gone before you and get to

7:58

the absolute nub of it. But

8:00

then if you spend a week or so researching

8:03

something, or in the case of if you're a

8:05

political or war reporter several years, the

8:07

urge is to share everything you've discovered

8:10

and cut out the rubbish for sure,

8:12

but really share all the interesting and

8:14

all the important and all the true

8:16

and verifiable facts about it. And

8:19

I think sometimes when I've been researching novels

8:21

or sometimes when I read novels which are

8:23

heavily researched, the journalistic impulse

8:25

has rather dominated the novelistic

8:27

impulse. And while it's true that

8:30

you need to know all this, you don't need

8:32

to share it all. You just need to know

8:34

it. And I think, you know,

8:36

experience has taught me to cut and cut and

8:38

cut. What happens to the

8:40

verifiable fact machine that is a journalist

8:42

when he engages in the art of

8:44

lying, which is the novelist? I

8:47

think you use a sort of twin track in

8:49

your mind really, and people are always fascinated by

8:51

research. And the research

8:53

is there just to make sure that

8:55

anything you say which happened in the

8:58

past that your character is it could

9:00

feasibly have happened to a character in

9:02

your character's situation. So

9:04

in Birdsong, for instance, although the main character

9:06

Stephen is an invention, you know, very, very

9:08

much not like the sort of typical First

9:10

World War soldier being neither a blue eyed

9:13

officer nor a sort of pack up your

9:15

troubles in your old kit bag type. At

9:17

the same time, I wanted his experiences of

9:20

day to day living what it felt like,

9:22

what they ate, where they slept, how

9:24

frightened they were, what it felt like

9:26

to be wounded. I wanted them to

9:28

be feasible, partly out of

9:31

respect for the people who'd actually been

9:33

through these experiences. But

9:35

then in The Seventh Son is set

9:37

in the near future. Obviously

9:39

that's much easier to research because there's

9:41

nothing there to research. You have

9:44

a completely free hand to make it up. And

9:47

the book is not at all my prediction

9:49

about the future. In fact, it

9:52

was pointed out to me by one of these

9:54

seven readers that the book starts in

9:56

2030, but it ends in 2055. and

10:00

the world of 20-50 times is absolutely no different at

10:02

all from the world we live in today. And

10:04

I said, well, that's my contention, that's my belief

10:07

that things will change actually much less than we

10:09

think. But anyway, let's not what the book's about.

10:11

It's not predicting our future in

10:13

some boring dystopia or something. But

10:16

I was persuaded, and this is an example

10:18

actually of the sort of consensus of editorial

10:20

thought, that I could have a bit more

10:22

fun with the near future. And

10:24

obviously some things will be different. So

10:27

from 30 years ago to today, I

10:29

think there's hardly any change in the world,

10:31

apart from the fact that we will carry a mobile

10:33

phone. Okay, that is quite a big change. And

10:36

so for 30 years on from now, obviously the

10:38

world will be hotter. And

10:40

I guess AI will have

10:42

a bigger impact on our

10:44

lives. So I just made a few nods to

10:46

things like this, and I

10:49

actually invented some slightly improved

10:51

politics. It's hard

10:53

to imagine that politics can carry on

10:55

getting worse. So it's not

10:57

dystopian, these little touches there are slightly more

10:59

hopeful, I hope. But as I said before,

11:01

this is not what the book is about.

11:04

The book is about parents and

11:06

children. And above all, what

11:08

a strange creature the human being is.

11:11

Who came first into your mind?

11:13

Was it Talisa? Was it Seth?

11:16

Was it Alaric and Mary? Who

11:18

came first? Or was it Lucas Parn? I

11:21

think the character who came first is Seth,

11:23

the child. Because that was

11:25

the big challenge really. You

11:28

know, people talk about how do you write about

11:30

characters of the opposite sex? And how do you

11:32

write about someone older than you or younger than

11:34

you, or completely different cultural background and so on.

11:36

And these are valid questions and they

11:38

all pose difficulties. How

11:41

do you actually write about a human

11:43

who is not human at

11:45

all in the same way as you and me? Well,

11:48

he is, but in very different

11:50

proportions. I think something like 3.5% Neanderthal.

11:56

And the rest is Sapiens with some

11:58

other probably human ancestors. yet been

12:00

able to identify. That is

12:02

much more Neanderthal than that. You know,

12:05

if you think it's difficult to write

12:07

an old woman from another country,

12:09

how difficult is it to write a

12:12

child from another species? So he

12:15

was the big challenge and I didn't want to

12:17

make him too different. And

12:20

the fact is that the Neanderthal that we all

12:22

have in our genomes, or almost all of us

12:24

have, is not very active

12:26

in our genes. It seems to be just

12:29

carried and is gradually vanishing.

12:32

But what we do know about Neanderthals

12:34

is that they were very resourceful and

12:36

very resilient and then existed for about

12:38

300,000 years, which is about three times longer

12:42

than Thomas Sapiens has. And

12:44

we think that they had language and

12:47

some sort of culture. But

12:49

they lived in very difficult climates

12:52

and they didn't develop, well they didn't

12:54

breed nearly as much as we did.

12:56

So they didn't have to develop the

12:58

strategies that we had by being so

13:00

densely populated, which may or may not

13:03

have led us to the extreme sort

13:05

of cultural and intellectual achievements that we've

13:07

developed. But I very much

13:09

wanted Seth not

13:11

to be a representative of the

13:13

cliched idea of a Neanderthal being some

13:16

sort of caveman dragging his knuckles on

13:18

the ground. All the evidence is that

13:21

Neanderthals were either civilized humans, but

13:23

just civilized in a different way.

13:26

And I think probably my 3.5% Neanderthal

13:28

represents the better part of me

13:30

really. Why?

13:33

Why were you drawn to

13:35

this story about a

13:38

homo sapien and Neanderthal? It

13:40

happened after I'd written Human Traces,

13:42

which is about the

13:44

origins of psychiatry and psychoanalysis in the

13:47

late 19th century. And really about the

13:49

debate about whether the fact that we

13:53

are so prone to mental illness

13:55

and to psychosis and delusion, whether

13:58

this is caused by something unsung. stable

14:00

in our inheritance, and whether it is

14:02

indeed passed on from parent to child

14:05

and stays in families, or

14:07

whether it's simply a reaction to

14:09

the difficult lives and rather unnatural lives we lead.

14:11

So is it nature or nurture? Is it in

14:13

our genes, or is it in the world around

14:15

us? And that debate

14:17

is still going on today, really, in slightly

14:19

more sophisticated terms, I suppose. Researching

14:22

that, obviously, I looked a lot at

14:24

where we human kinders come from. And

14:27

then a few years after I finished the book, in about 2010,

14:29

2011, sometime around then, it

14:32

was discovered that we weren't quite what

14:34

we thought we were anyway, that we had

14:36

actually, we weren't just a pure species, we'd

14:38

interpret with Neanderthals, probably interpret with other human

14:40

species as well. So this was a

14:43

very important breakthrough, and it didn't

14:45

really change a great deal in sort of

14:48

day-to-day living, of course. But

14:51

it made me think hard about

14:53

what we are. And there was a tweet,

14:55

oddly enough, it seems amazing to be taken

14:57

inspiration from Twitter, which most people are now

15:00

sort of leaving because it's just a sort

15:02

of terrible boxing

15:04

ring of fascists. And they're shouting at

15:06

each other. Richard Dawkins,

15:08

I followed, and he

15:10

just tweeted one Friday afternoon, I think, before

15:12

going off for the weekend, suppose

15:15

the, I'm gonna put this in

15:17

non-scientific terms, because I can't quite remember the scientific

15:20

terms, but he was basically

15:22

saying, suppose that homo erectus, which is

15:24

a long, long distance, and

15:26

ancestor, long before Neanderthals, suppose

15:29

that they could recreate the genome of

15:31

that and stick it into a

15:33

human ovum egg, and then

15:35

this clone could be given birth

15:37

to. That struck me

15:40

as very, very Jurassic Park, and far

15:42

too wacky for me. But

15:44

it did set me thinking along these lines

15:46

again, and I thought if instead of having

15:48

a clone, you had a hybrid, in other

15:50

words, 50-50, and

15:53

instead of something homo erectus by whom

15:55

we know nothing, really, suppose

15:58

it was a creature, a human. whom

16:00

we know quite a lot than the Andertel

16:02

and furthermore one that we know we did

16:04

breed with. So we must have liked them

16:06

sufficiently to mate with them at least and

16:09

they must have been sufficiently similar to us.

16:11

So in that way it became

16:14

much less science fiction and much

16:16

more, you know, mainstream study

16:19

of human people. You

16:21

must, because you're so relentlessly

16:23

curious Sebastian, act

16:26

upon these nuggets

16:29

that you see around you. How

16:32

do you know when that nugget is

16:34

such that it will form a book

16:38

that you will then end up devoting

16:41

potentially years to

16:44

extrapolating from it? Well

16:46

that's the, that is the big question.

16:49

How do you tell the difference between

16:51

a thought and an idea? I suppose

16:54

the answer is experience

16:57

and it's also sort of workshopping

16:59

it. This sort has come into your mind such

17:02

as I've just been describing and

17:04

then you try that down the pub and

17:07

if people say, oh that's all boring or wacko

17:09

or who cares and their eyes glaze over straight

17:11

away, you think, hmm, needs a bit of work

17:14

and then on the back of the envelope you

17:16

start mapping out characters. If Seth is

17:18

going to be the main character, well who's the

17:20

surrogate going to be? What kind of person is

17:23

this? And then that may play

17:25

into a previous idea you've had about something

17:27

or other and the kind of person you want to

17:29

write about. But sometimes it doesn't and

17:32

sometimes you realize that in order to make

17:34

this thought into an idea and in order

17:36

to make that idea into a book, you're

17:39

going to have to have 15 major characters and

17:41

at that point you think, well that's unmanageable. I

17:43

mean and no one's going to be able to

17:46

follow that and I'm not going to be able

17:48

to manage that. So sadly you have to abandon

17:50

it. So it's trying it

17:52

out and thinking about it and turning it

17:54

over in your mind, chatting to people about

17:56

it, speaking to your agent or anything your friends,

17:58

the guy in the pub and... and then

18:00

sitting down hard with a piece of paper. Is

18:03

there a point at which in every novel you

18:05

try to give up? You think this isn't going

18:07

to be good, it's not going to get any

18:09

better. You've talked about imposter syndrome already, but the

18:11

number of authors I speak to, there's some that

18:14

they'll say, at 40,000 words I think, I

18:16

always think this is rubbish and it's never going to

18:18

get any better and I have no word

18:21

making it better. Do you have such an issue? No,

18:23

I try to make sure that doesn't happen. So

18:26

I do quite a lot of work before. I

18:28

mean, I've ditched things after about 10,000 and

18:32

that's not the end of the world. That's, you know, that's kind

18:35

of three weeks or something. But

18:38

I avoid that by, you know,

18:40

doing a lot of workshopping, not

18:42

literally, but in my mind, talking

18:44

it through making maps and diagrams

18:46

and so on. So thank goodness,

18:48

touching wood with both hands as

18:50

we speak, that hasn't happened to me yet and

18:53

there are strategies for avoiding it, but it must

18:56

be heartbreaking when it does. And

18:58

certainly there are times when I think, oh God, that

19:00

wasn't very good, that page, or you have bad days

19:02

for sure and then something better comes

19:04

along and then you go back to the bad day

19:06

and you think, well, what I was trying

19:08

to say there was this, but actually I've already said that,

19:10

so let's just cut it. Because

19:13

this year has been taken up by

19:15

editing and now publicizing the Seventh Son,

19:18

have you set yourself a date for which

19:20

you shall then start to write again and

19:22

we get the happy Sebastian Fox back again?

19:24

Everyone gets happy Sebastian back in their lives.

19:27

Well, 2024 is going to be happy Sebastian

19:30

from start to finish, I hope. In

19:33

theory, yes, I mean, I would

19:35

start in January, but unfortunately, it's

19:38

not really predictable. What I

19:40

hope is that because I've done such

19:42

sort of mechanical and sort of physical

19:44

work this year, not completely uncreative, that

19:47

all that stuff has left the

19:49

creative side of my brain sort

19:52

of resting and that you hope to mix

19:54

your metaphors a bit, that there's a bit

19:56

of compost happening and a bit of growth

19:58

and stuff coming along. there and maybe

20:01

on Boxing Day suddenly I will spring from

20:03

my bed with a beautiful new book fully

20:06

formed in my mind but it

20:08

doesn't tend to happen quite like that. But

20:10

I'm sort of opening up that part of

20:12

my head, the creative part which has been

20:14

shut down for a year and sort

20:16

of having a little look inside and seeing what's

20:19

there and it's all a bit murky

20:21

at the moment but that's the way of it

20:23

and then suddenly something will emerge.

20:25

I do feel confident that something will emerge. I

20:28

am assuming because it's such a

20:30

niche reference that you have eaten

20:32

the Sri Lankan garlic curry before,

20:34

made entirely of garlic cloves. Yes

20:36

I have in a gaul, very

20:38

nice it was too actually, a

20:40

place called the Sun House owned

20:42

by a rather eccentric Englishman. The

20:44

food is absolutely sensational. I cook

20:46

the cashew nut curry that he

20:48

introduced me to myself from a

20:51

cookbook I bought by a woman called Emily Dobbs

20:53

who's his niece. There's a nice plug for you.

20:55

It's called the Welligama cookbook

20:57

or something like that. I absolutely love

21:00

Sri Lankan food. Brilliant, well I'm going

21:02

to the gaul literary fest in January.

21:04

See you there. Really, you're going to

21:06

be there. Yes. Brilliant. We will have

21:08

a cashew nut curry, also one of

21:10

my favourites. It has to be said

21:12

with the richness of the coconut milk

21:15

and the peas in it. The seventh

21:17

sun is just superb and it's an

21:19

utter page turner for me Sebastian. Can

21:21

you just tell us about Lucas Parn?

21:24

Yes, the sort of sleight of hand

21:27

as I refer to it that takes

21:29

place in the IVF clinic is

21:31

set in motion really by this guy

21:34

Lucas Parn who's a tech billionaire. So

21:36

this innocent rather pleasant couple in their

21:39

30s rather unassuming

21:41

Londoners go to have IVF

21:43

treatment because she's not able to have a

21:45

child and what they don't

21:47

understand is that the mail donation as

21:49

it were is switched out and substituted

21:52

by something else because although

21:54

this is a highly respectable institute and

21:56

the programme is run in concert with

21:58

the National Health Organization. service.

22:01

The guy who owns it, the

22:03

big money man behind it, is

22:05

very ambitious and wants to experiment

22:07

basically in the nature of humanity

22:10

for ostensibly good medical reasons to

22:12

do with defining exactly

22:14

what homo sapiens is compared to

22:16

other human species and how this

22:18

might help us define cures for

22:21

chronic illnesses which beset us. But

22:23

Parn himself has made his money out of

22:26

wave power and bio-tech. I don't really know

22:28

what any of these things are. It's techy

22:31

enough. But I didn't want him

22:33

to be too much of an Elon Musk figure.

22:35

So I don't have him talking in

22:37

very techy jargon and he's not American,

22:40

he's Australian. And he actually

22:42

talks a bit like an outback shapeshifter

22:44

which surprises people to start with as

22:46

he tries to disarm them a little

22:48

bit. But once he is feeling comfortable

22:50

with someone his accent settles down into sort

22:53

of bland slightly East

22:55

European middle of nowhere voice

22:57

really. And what

23:00

interested me about him

23:02

was this assumption you have

23:04

among very, very rich people and not

23:07

just tech people incidentally but people I've

23:09

become familiar with by writing about the

23:11

financial crash bankers and hedge funders is

23:14

that at a certain level of wealth you think

23:16

normal life doesn't apply to you. So

23:18

you have this great saying income tax

23:21

is voluntary which was popular among the

23:23

people who caused the financial crash or

23:25

I think it was Mrs. Trump who

23:27

said income taxes are for the little

23:30

people. And when they go

23:32

to a restaurant they don't look at the menu, they

23:34

just tell the waiter what they want. And

23:36

if the waiter says we don't have that they give him

23:38

250 pound notes and say we'll go and get it. All

23:41

of which is slightly irritating but

23:43

where it becomes serious is when

23:46

they think that ethics or medical

23:48

ethics or morality don't apply to

23:50

them either. And so

23:52

that's the area that Lucas Parn is

23:54

in. He thinks that his wealth has

23:56

removed him from all responsibility to other

23:59

people. And this is quite

24:01

a common phenomenon. And you see

24:03

it in some of these billionaires in California

24:05

who they think that death is for

24:07

the little people, that they're not going to die.

24:10

To which my response is fine. I mean,

24:13

if you really want to live

24:15

forever, Jolly Good Luck to you. But personally, if

24:17

someone was going to live forever, I

24:20

would rather it was Victoria Wood or Barry

24:23

Cryer or Jane Austen or someone

24:25

who actually contributed something worthwhile in

24:27

human life. And also boring

24:29

little man in a track pants in Cupertino.

24:32

That's what I'm thinking. It's

24:36

really interesting you talk about this super

24:38

wealthy or ultra high net worth individuals,

24:40

I think as they're called. No, that's

24:43

just very rich. We don't have

24:45

to condescend to use that horrible term. Rich

24:47

bastards. Yeah. What

24:50

is your feeling towards people? I mean,

24:53

you made it fairly clear actually, just

24:55

a few moments ago, but towards people

24:57

who have accrued that amount of wealth.

24:59

Is there any sympathy for

25:01

them? Because how isolating it is?

25:04

Is there envy for them? Is

25:06

there a loathing of them? Or are you

25:08

fascinated by them? I don't think

25:11

about them a lot. But I mean,

25:13

I was certainly loathed a lot of

25:15

people involved in the financial crash who

25:17

acted either illegally or certainly analytically and

25:19

immorally and who were bailed out by

25:21

their buddies in the government. And so

25:23

you have the extraordinary

25:26

phenomenon of a bank

25:28

being fined hundreds of

25:30

millions for fraud on

25:32

a deal in which they made billions. So

25:35

they paid the hundreds of millions for

25:37

fraud as a sort of like a

25:39

10% service charge really, but they kept

25:42

the billions from the

25:45

counterparty whom they had bankrupted.

25:48

So how do you get your

25:50

billions out of a bankrupt counterparty? Well,

25:52

in America, they were paid out of tax

25:54

revenues. So the guy

25:56

who pumped gas for the woman that

25:58

the supermarket checkout. who'd paid

26:00

all their tax. All that tax didn't

26:03

go into hospitals and roads. It went

26:05

back into the back pocket of fraudsters

26:07

who'd been convicted of fraud. If

26:10

that doesn't make you angry, you have

26:12

no anger in you. I

26:14

don't mind people making lots of money as long

26:16

as they do it, honestly, and as long as

26:18

they pay tax. And I find

26:21

it quite odd when billionaires,

26:24

and I think we all know the kind of people we're

26:26

talking about, start out big

26:28

charitable foundations and cure diseases

26:31

and all that. But you

26:33

know that they are paying only 1% tax, and

26:35

I would rather

26:37

that they paid the tax and allowed the

26:39

government to decide how to

26:41

spend that money. Conscience laundering, I think

26:43

someone once called it. Now,

26:47

we asked you to bring a few things to

26:49

talk to us about Sebastian, as we always do

26:51

on the Penguin podcast. And the first one of

26:53

your objects is a river. Yeah,

26:56

this is, as people who have read my

26:58

books will know, I've spent a lot of

27:00

time in France. And it's one of the

27:02

greatest things about being English, I think, and

27:04

there are lots of good things and some

27:06

rather disappointing at the moment, but lots of

27:08

good things. But one of the best is

27:10

being only 20 miles away from France. So

27:12

you just take a boat or a train

27:15

and you're in a sort of completely different

27:17

world. It's like Alice through the Looking Glass,

27:19

people's assumptions about life, the way they live

27:21

are completely different. They are very civilized country,

27:23

but in an utterly different way from ours. And

27:26

I've always loved it and found

27:28

it intriguing. Sometimes it's annoying, but

27:30

largely it's enormously good fun. Beautiful,

27:32

beautiful country too. Once

27:35

when my wife and I

27:37

recently married and she was pregnant with our

27:39

first child, we stayed in a little jeet

27:42

in the lot, a sort

27:44

of pretty run down little barn place actually.

27:46

And one day we went off and it's a picnic

27:49

and I said, if we just go downhill, I'm sure

27:51

there's a river here. So we

27:53

drove our car as far as we could and

27:55

then we walked and sure enough, eventually we found

27:57

this Absolutely beautiful.

28:00

The place where the river in the

28:02

bank and dappled shade and you could

28:04

paddle in the river and it was

28:06

like something out of the film set

28:08

course. I expect to that we be

28:11

sued away at any minute by an

28:13

angry farmer that amazing. The we weren't

28:15

super the I didn't take any photographs

28:17

and have a camera that about I

28:19

was say eight or nine years later

28:22

we were on holiday somewhere nearby and

28:24

I said to my wife that scones

28:26

if we can find disenchanted space and

28:28

by this time he had three children.

28:31

And I remember to take a camera on.

28:33

We found it and I took photographs of

28:35

them standing. It is like some something out

28:38

of the. A rather unbelievably

28:40

and cheesy film that they stand

28:42

up with his sunlight pouring down

28:44

on them, fishing and slashing and

28:46

paddling and we were drinking wine

28:49

on the banks and eating. Come

28:51

on their sandwiches whenever it was.

28:53

Service: A place that I felt

28:55

very happy and I felt know

28:57

like this so seldom works out

28:59

exactly how you would like it

29:01

too. and this was just absolutely

29:03

perfect day. And I'd like my

29:05

is on my ashes to be scattered on the

29:08

spot that a pretty small my wife would ever

29:10

be able to find that. And

29:12

second, objects, Yes, something that changes to

29:15

me. I think this comes under the

29:17

heading of and I think the Writing

29:19

of George Orwell, which I discovered when

29:22

I was about fourteen. I suppose when

29:24

I first began to read a lot,

29:26

I was up to that point, rather

29:29

a conventional little boy and. Quite.

29:31

Serious of a shy that fist. I

29:33

knew what right wasn't I knew what

29:35

Ramos and an eye for an eye

29:37

and a tooth for tooth and so

29:39

on. And then I read an essay

29:41

by Orwell. It's called a hanging which

29:43

was about when he was in Burma

29:46

or as a sort of colonial policemen

29:48

and some old man was being escorted

29:50

to the scuffles. I mean those no

29:52

question. But this man was guilty of

29:54

what every been charged up. But as

29:56

he watched him walk. To. The scaffold

29:58

to be hanged. He will

30:00

seize him. Step aside to avoid a puddle.

30:03

And. The that moment he starts to think

30:06

that. This. Man isn't actually dying

30:08

at he's alive old, his organs are

30:10

working, his skin is renewing itself, his

30:12

nails still growing and would be even

30:14

as is falling through the air through

30:17

the drop on the scuffle he says

30:19

and strays. But until that moment I

30:21

never understood what it means to kill

30:23

the healthy, conscious living man. And this

30:25

suddenly made me realize that there were

30:28

different ways of at the world. It

30:30

wasn't simple and it's set my mind

30:32

really. Asses. So too

30:34

liberal, slumped to the world forever

30:37

and ever afterwards, and middle while

30:39

also causes the most tremendously clear,

30:41

lucid and persuasive writer. So logical,

30:44

so carries you with him in

30:46

his arguments, and he so generous

30:48

in his judgment. He's on the

30:51

side of the poor. He's.

30:53

On the side of the downtrodden is

30:55

on the side of the man is

30:58

about to be hanged bet. He also

31:00

detested totalitarianism in any shape. So his,

31:02

as you most, a leftwing said that

31:05

his. Adopted

31:08

from six to the became covers. Customers

31:11

around the pump the sentence was in that

31:13

but anyway although was also very entertaining and

31:15

I learned look. After

31:18

someone who is such

31:20

a Francophile, Your

31:22

third objects. Is

31:24

ever entirely different language Yes Italian for

31:27

beginners not. Sat in my bathroom for

31:29

a long time and I was look

31:31

at it in the bath and repeat

31:33

myself on your know com esta motor

31:36

then he cannot say and I can

31:38

do the accent but the groomer of

31:40

Italians hundred new thing and I can

31:42

speak French and I have quite a

31:45

good action for an English speaker and

31:47

the secret to that is that you

31:49

you to imitate a Frenchman a mean

31:51

we can all do have a rather

31:54

second. rate imitation of a scotsman or an

31:56

irishman or destroyed and was i think i've already

31:58

done so when you come to speak French, all

32:00

you do is you figure out

32:02

what you're going to say, bonjour, oui,

32:04

es créche pour ais un prélque t'ai

32:07

vous poutil, c'en c'est peu le t'écheau

32:09

de la peuchos de l'unzour. But you

32:12

just do like a

32:14

Rory Bremner imitating a Frenchman. And that's

32:16

how you have a forget a French

32:18

accent. There's no big secret to it.

32:21

And I'd done it French at school, so I'd

32:23

sort of got the basic grammar and so on.

32:25

But I thought I'm not really very good at

32:28

languages. I'm not naturally good at them. But

32:30

my wife speaks fluent Italian, having

32:32

studied at university and having lived there for a bit. And

32:35

I thought it would be good

32:37

to learn a second language. But I'm afraid it's sort

32:39

of stayed forever beyond me.

32:41

And although I can order in a restaurant,

32:43

and though having learned Latin at school and

32:45

having learned French, I can sort of vaguely

32:48

understand a newspaper article,

32:50

because so many of the words are the same, really. Being

32:53

able to speak has eluded me. And

32:55

I'm too lazy to learn all the

32:57

verb construction. So I chose that

32:59

object as a sort of salutary

33:02

slap over the wrist for all

33:04

the failures of hard

33:06

work that have been very, very much part

33:08

of my life. When you're in

33:10

France, is

33:13

your impression good enough that

33:15

people sometimes are surprised

33:18

that you are, in fact, English? They assume

33:20

from the way I speak that I

33:22

am sort of close to bilingual, which is

33:24

a disaster, because of course then they start

33:26

speaking at a million miles an hour. And

33:29

it's one thing to be able

33:31

to do a plausible imitation of

33:34

a French. Quite another

33:36

thing to understand, a

33:38

voluble Parisian at 1,000 miles an hour

33:41

venting his wrath and

33:43

indignation about something

33:45

that's gone wrong. And Parisians are

33:48

permanently indignant. And after a bit, your brain

33:50

just can't really take in. And

33:58

I have to say, if you... I

34:00

don't think I've

34:03

ever actually been mistaken for a French

34:05

person, well not for very long. The

34:08

formation of the words of the Larynx and

34:10

the, you know, it's really hard to sound.

34:13

Though I have a French goddaughter whose mother

34:15

is English, Father French, and

34:17

watching her grow up when she was beginning

34:19

to learn to speak at about two years

34:21

old, from the mouth

34:23

of this baby came this

34:25

extraordinary guttural and perfectly and

34:27

beautifully formed sound. And I looked

34:29

at her mother English and she looked at me and

34:32

said, it's just not natural, I mean how can this

34:34

be? But

34:36

it's all to do with neural pathways in

34:38

the brain and what you've heard and how

34:40

that feeds back into how you shape

34:42

sounds. But for me the

34:44

problem of understanding French is almost all the

34:46

vowel sounds sound the same, they're all variations

34:49

of en. And there

34:51

are about ten different ways you can spell

34:53

the en sound. So it's very

34:55

hard to pick out and of course in

34:57

any given word French people only pronounce about

34:59

half the letters and most of them they

35:02

just subsume into all. So

35:04

it's tough. Next

35:07

object, Sebastian, is a

35:09

song by Stevie Wonder. Tell us why

35:11

this particular song by this particular artist. Well

35:14

I was asked to think of something that,

35:16

a piece of music that moves here and

35:18

I thought of lots of pretentious bits of

35:21

classical music and opera and so on

35:23

but the truth is I'm not a

35:25

particularly musical person. I mean I like

35:27

it but I am not musically educated

35:29

and I find a lot of classical

35:31

music quite sort of

35:34

algorithmic and mathematical Bach

35:36

Mozart for instance. I'm

35:38

not qualified to doubt their genius which I would

35:41

never do but it doesn't really

35:43

speak to me very much but since

35:45

the age of about seven or eight, like

35:48

most kids, I grew up with The

35:50

Beatles and Tamla Motown

35:52

and Phil Spector's Wall of Sound and

35:54

you know I've always loved

35:56

pop music and I remember being on

35:59

holiday in the evening. outs of skiing

36:01

holiday and it was

36:03

very cold and I was about to get on

36:05

a ski lift with my brother and

36:07

the guy who ran the ski lift had

36:09

a little hut with a sort of brazier

36:11

outside where he tried to keep warm and

36:13

he had a tinny transistor radio which he

36:15

was playing and it began to play this

36:17

song overjoyed by Stevie Wonder

36:20

and I knew Stevie Wonder's records obviously again

36:22

you know grown up with Tamler and I'd

36:25

bought Talking Book and Innovisions and so on

36:28

but when I heard the song I just thought this

36:31

is prodigious I mean there is more

36:33

melody in this one song than there

36:35

is in a whole album

36:37

of most people it's got

36:39

about four different tunes and it's just going on

36:41

and on and my

36:43

brother and I both stopped in the icy

36:45

cold and we let other people go past

36:47

us because we simply couldn't

36:50

believe the gorgeousness of this

36:52

melody and I saw him before me

36:54

actually in Battersea Park about ten years

36:56

ago and it was he plays

36:59

his own stuff very well surprisingly

37:01

he doesn't message about too much he's

37:03

not like Dylan where you're three minutes

37:06

in before you recognize what the song

37:08

is and we're seeing Stevie Wonder live

37:10

you're very moved by the songs by

37:13

the melody the sadness the sweetness the

37:15

joy superstition and so do

37:17

you can all the upbeat ones

37:20

as well but you're also very

37:22

moved that there is someone alive

37:24

who is this talented especially

37:27

considering his very considerable

37:29

disadvantages watching him

37:31

live is treble-y thrilling and

37:34

finally for your objects Sebastian you've

37:36

just talked about skiing I presume

37:39

tennis is another one of your sporting pursuits

37:41

is it I played a lot of sport

37:43

mostly cricket but I had to give up

37:45

cricket a couple of years ago because I

37:47

could no longer see the

37:50

ball properly and football I played a

37:52

lot and you know pretty much Sunday

37:54

Park stuff you know but vigorous and

37:57

tennis I still play I belong to a club

37:59

nearby and the tennis racket

38:01

which is the object I picked which reminds

38:03

me of home because the club is nearby

38:05

and it's been a great a very enjoyable

38:08

part of my life. I've played since I

38:10

was about 10 I suppose

38:12

off and on. I've never particularly

38:14

well because I was always too

38:16

engaged in other sports but

38:19

I began to play more seriously

38:21

about 15-20 years ago. I played

38:24

in various fairly friendly league competitions in London.

38:26

The doubles which is a much better game

38:28

in singles because you don't have to be

38:30

so fast. Singles can be quite boring in

38:32

tennis I think men's singles in particular because

38:35

it's so risk-free. It's turned into

38:37

a kind of endurance sport like

38:39

squash used to be. So

38:41

I don't really think Djokovic is

38:44

the greatest tennis player ever but I think he's

38:46

the fittest ever. He'll never be

38:48

as good as Federer. He can win another 40 titles

38:51

for all I care. He'll never change

38:53

the way the game is played or exemplify the

38:55

beauty of the game in the way

38:57

that Federer did. We tend

38:59

to play on Sunday evening. I have some friends

39:01

and we have a regular four followed by quite

39:03

nice dinner. The club has quite nice food and

39:06

then pottering back in time for match of

39:08

the day too with the tennis racket in my

39:10

hand. It reminds me of how

39:12

nice home life can be. How did you

39:14

become a West Ham fan Sebastian of all

39:16

the teams? Well I was born there wouldn't

39:19

I? It's a

39:21

very good question. Well the

39:23

old atmosphere players and you know more than them

39:25

wouldn't have let me in if I hadn't been.

39:27

Now it was by

39:29

chance really. Again it was a peer pressure

39:31

really at the school but being a disagreeable

39:33

little boy I didn't want to follow the

39:36

size that the other kids supported which was

39:38

largely in those days Spurs and

39:40

Manchester United and this

39:42

was in believe it or not

39:44

1964 and it was the

39:46

semi-final of the FA Cup and there was

39:48

this team called West Ham and I didn't really

39:50

know where West Ham was. I thought

39:53

it might be in Devon where it's

39:55

the West Country but I really like

39:57

the color of their shirts. Clariton

40:00

Blue. Anyway, they won the semi-final and

40:02

they won the final. And

40:04

I got to know the team and there was

40:07

this guy called Bobby Moore, who

40:09

played in the middle of the back and I went

40:11

to see them in London. I hadn't

40:13

really been to London before and I went to

40:15

see them at Upton Park and then

40:17

I went to see them at Arsenal. And

40:20

this guy Moore was just

40:22

playing a different game from other people. He wasn't

40:24

that quick and he wasn't that big, but

40:26

his anticipation was such and his timing

40:28

was such that he was two

40:31

yards ahead of everyone else despite being a

40:33

yard slower. And there was a young man

40:35

called Trevor Brooking who had just broken into

40:37

the team. A bit slow and

40:39

a bit prone to fall over, but he

40:41

looked, I thought he looked handy. And

40:43

of course, there was a guy called Jeff Hurst and

40:46

Martin Peters. So purely by chance,

40:49

I had chosen a team that was great

40:51

fun to follow. Though, boy, did we have

40:53

to wait a long time for

40:57

any other success. Well,

41:01

I will now revert to you. I'm a Tottenham fan,

41:03

so you can't put the phone down because we've already

41:05

really covered most of our conversation. So if you did,

41:07

it wouldn't be that much of a problem. Tottenham

41:10

is fine by me. Good side, doing

41:12

very well this year. They've always played

41:14

good attacking football, no problem with Tottenham.

41:16

Or Chelsea, actually. My son's a great

41:19

Chelsea fan. I remember talking to an

41:21

old guy, an Arsenal supporter, and I say, you know,

41:23

how did you choose? He said, well, I live in

41:26

North London. And I said, yeah, but between Arsenal and

41:28

Tottenham, he said, well, in my day,

41:31

we supported both. And

41:33

we would go, we'd always have a home game.

41:35

And you are an Arsenal and a Tottenham supporter.

41:37

This was, I suppose, a long time, you know,

41:40

the 1940s, probably. So it wasn't

41:42

sort of tribal. It was just my guy

41:45

lived between two great local teams and he

41:47

had a home game every Saturday. Wonderful.

41:50

Sebastian, it's always a pleasure to speak to you.

41:52

So thank you so much. It's been wonderful speaking

41:54

to you today. Thanks, Neil. It was really good

41:57

fun. I'll see you in Gaul. Yeah. And

42:02

thank you for listening wherever you are. If you

42:04

haven't already, don't forget to subscribe to make sure

42:06

you never miss an episode. And why not leave

42:08

us a review too and help us get the word

42:11

out. And finally, if you want to find out more

42:13

about this podcast or Sebastian's

42:15

wonderful new book, The Seventh Son,

42:17

head over to penguin.co.uk slash podcasts

42:19

where you'll find

42:21

cultural conversations with authors from Margaret

42:24

Atwood to Benjamin Geffenayah. Zip in,

42:26

see what you find. I'm Nihal

42:28

Afanayke. I'll see you next time.