15th January 2007
Well I did the radio interview on LBC this morning. Thank God it’s out of the way. I’ve done quite a few radio and TV interviews in the past so you might think I’d be used to them by now, but no, I still hate doing them. I like to think I can write a bit but if I have any other talents one of them is not a talent for talking, especially about myself. I don’t know what I sounded like but from my end it seemed about as coherent as John Prescott discussing Homer’s Odyssey while chewing treacle toffee.
Aware that I will never be an accomplished broadcaster I had prepared myself. (I’d stuffed sage and onion stuffing up my bottom and rubbed my chest with butter). I’d also asked myself the questions that LBC’s Nick Ferrari might ask me and written down my answers on a piece of paper. In fact he asked me a couple of the questions I had supposed he might but when I answered them it sounded to me like I was reading them off a piece of paper, which is exactly what I was doing, so I dispensed with the paper and decided to ad lib.
“Which are your favourite letters in the book?’ Nick asked. Well I knew the answer to that. I’ve answered it many times before. But my mind went completely blank. I quickly abandoned my ad lib strategy and went back to reading off the list of prepared answers. Where was it now? My finger ran down the list of answers. My opinions on publishers - they only want to publish books by so called celebrities – ‘My Rabbit by Jade Goody’ or maybe ‘Hoovering the house with Chantelle, titles like that – How I got the idea for the book? – Who designed the cover? – ah, here it is – Which are your favourite letters? “Yes Nick, that would be the Cyprus Airways letters when I pretended that I was very Turkish- looking and was a bit dubious about going on holiday to the Greek part of Cyprus in case the locals took exception to me.
And then the ordeal was over. I just hope it’s sold me a few books. Ignore this if you have already read it. My books Dear Air 2000 and Football Crazy are now in print. They ar e priced at £8.99 each and are available from Amazon, but readers of my blog can buy them direct from me for £7.50 including p & p. Just send me a cheque and I will send the book/books by return.
You can write to me at –Terry Ravenscroft, 19 Ventura Court, Ollersett Avenue, New Mills, High Peak, SK22 4LLDear Air 2000