I was quite excited when I heard that Lynn Barber was coming to the Forest party last week. Lynn Barber! Not only is she one of the most famous journalists of the last 20 years (her interviews are legendary), she's also a smoker. And she's on friendly terms with David Hockney, and since he was coming too (and the party went so well, or so I thought) I was convinced we were set for a favourable review. As it happens I've been in public relations long enough never to count my chickens. But even I was disappointed to read Barber's piece in today's Observer . (The title alone sets alarm bells ringing: 'This party's such a drag'.) Disappointed, but not surprised. After all, one of my favourite articles is Toby Young's 'My interview from hell' in which he wrote: The question of why anyone agrees to be profiled by Lynn Barber is a curious one. After all, her last collection of interviews was called Demon Barber so it's not as if she makes any secret of her intentions. The hatchet job is her stock-in-trade, yet for some reason there is never any shortage of willing subjects. According to Young: "Recent casualties include Boy George, Vanessa Redgrave, Robert Winston, Jerry Hall, Gyles Brandreth, Alan Sugar, Terence Conran, Julian Fellowes and Clare Short, to name but a few". That was in 2006. I'm sure there have been a few more "casualties" since, and I'm equally sure that Forest won't be the last. Lynn Barber's Forest/Boisdale article is HERE b ...
Anytime
I was quite excited when I heard that Lynn Barber was coming to the Forest party last week. Lynn Barber! Not only is she one of the most famous journalists of the last 20 years (her interviews are legendary), she's also a smoker. And she's on friendly terms with David Hockney, and since he was coming too (and the party went so well, or so I thought) I was convinced we were set for a favourable review. As it happens I've been in public relations long enough never to count my chickens. But even I was disappointed to read Barber's piece in today's Observer . (The title alone sets alarm bells ringing: 'This party's such a drag'.) Disappointed, but not surprised. After all, one of my favourite articles is Toby Young's 'My interview from hell' in which he wrote: The question of why anyone agrees to be profiled by Lynn Barber is a curious one. After all, her last collection of interviews was called Demon Barber so it's not as if she makes any secret of her intentions. The hatchet job is her stock-in-trade, yet for some reason there is never any shortage of willing subjects. According to Young: "Recent casualties include Boy George, Vanessa Redgrave, Robert Winston, Jerry Hall, Gyles Brandreth, Alan Sugar, Terence Conran, Julian Fellowes and Clare Short, to name but a few". That was in 2006. I'm sure there have been a few more "casualties" since, and I'm equally sure that Forest won't be the last. Lynn Barber's Forest/Boisdale article is HERE b ...