Clive J

Saturday, 16th February 2008

Apart from receiving e-mails intended for the richer, more powerful (but older) Clive Davis of "American Idol" fame, etc, I sometimes find myself being addressed as Clive James by people who think I'm a portly Australian. If only I had his brainpower.

As you may have seen, he made an unusually thoughtful panellist on Question Time this week. He's also the subject of a brief Q&A at Paper Cuts. I can't say I'm overwhelmed at the thought of reading yet another instalment of his memoirs - volume five, no less - but the piece does contain a link to his website, which I haven't visited anywhere near enough lately. It's a sprawling place where you can wander into a photographic gallery, sample video interviews and prose by "guest writers". (I'm intrigued to discover that he's also a fan of Frederic Raphael's notebooks.)

No surprise, then, to learn that, "Every hour of daylight that I’m not working on my books I spend online." The Q&A also offers this snippet about the joys and horrors of bookshops:

Because I was once a known television face, all my books including “Cultural Amnesia” are usually shelved in the Media section, so I find myself squeezed between learned studies of Michael Jackson and Famke Janssen. The second part of that feels great. My books about television, on the other hand, are usually shelved under Biography, and my volumes of autobiography under Psychology. The shelving persons in London bookstores are hired for knowing nothing about books, lest they steal them. My friend Barry Humphries once said that the toughest thing about shopping at Foyle’s was trying to convince a failed Norwegian au pair girl that Dickens was an author.

Famke who? I assumed it was an Icelandic semiotician until I checked with Wikipedia. This probably means I am now qualified to serve as a High Court judge.