A cliché walks

I had occasion yesterday to ring Colm Toibin in Dublin. I asked him a fairly complicated question about the historical background to modern Irish self-understanding. He paused for about 30 seconds, and then spoke in well-structured paragraphs, arranged around a theme and telling a coherent story, for about fifteen minutes at a speed where I could write most of it down without missing too much or my attention flagging. It was an astonishing demonstration of what talking can become as a craft properly practised. I was, like, oh my god!