Every time a journalist phones me I remind myself of Oscar Wilde’s warning, “the difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read”.
I find that I can’t break the habit of trying to explain to journalists that there is more to the question than they have as yet seen. But it can get you into trouble.
Last Lent a nice lady from the Daily Telegraph phoned me to ask about hot cross buns. My day had been a little boring up to that point and I found myself a little over-exercised by the challenge of explaining not so much why hot cross buns mattered, but why the cross they carried on top mattered.
