Vanity

A narrow escape for Professor Dawkins, I think: I was just rung up by BBC Four, a digital TV channel, and asked if I would be interested in presenting a programme about him, and interviewing him. The woman talking to me seemed smart and sympathetic; she had actually got hold of a copy of the Darwin Wars, and read several chapters. The money was agreeable. I found I had a few ideas still on the subject. After about half an hour, she asked whether I still resembled the figure on the back jacket of the book. Well, I said, I’m 48 in a month, and I have less hair now than then. Whoops. The gig went up in smoke less savoury than the stuff rising in the background of that author picture.