One of my Flickr contacts, mrkubi posted this and I thought is was so excellent I had to share it.
Oh, and today I bought a new camera – a Canon 7D, which I’ve wanted for as long as I’ve known about it. I’ve been charging the battery.
I’ll post some test shots just as soon as I have taken some. I’ll post some video, too. So excited to have a DSLR that shoots HD video. I can’t quite believe it, actually.
In 2010, I’m going to make a real effort to produce some video and audio slideshows. In order to do that, I’ll need to find appropriate music, which for me is a joy unbridled. Music, like nothing else, can evoke emotions I find difficult to express verbally. By using images and music, I reckon I’ll be able to communicate a lot of what I feel about certain things I encounter in my life. Besides, music and pictures are two of my favourite things in life. Why not spend time with them?
ABC News here in Australia did a fine job this week in this regard with its 2009 Year In Review. The choice of Evermore’s Can You Hear Me as the soundtrack to a year packed with dramatic stories from all sections – political, sporting, entertaining, tragic, inspiring, and more – was exceptional. Hats off to the producer of the package.
The song itself is from the band’s concept album Truth Of The World: Welcome To The Show, which is said to be about “the album is a concept album about trash media, political propaganda, advertising and infotainment”. The Kiwi brothers did a great interview in the Otago Daily Times when the album launched in March 2009, which reveals the background to the record.
This song – the final chapter on the album – is as triumphant as it is tragic, has an awesome melody and a huge layered outro that has to be heard loud. It will no doubt fill your tear ducts in conjunction with the words and pictures, particularly when the drum roll and spinning stills accompany each other just after the 3:10 mark.
But take time to enjoy the song on its own, too, because it’s a wonderful piece of music.
A decade ... so much can happen.
With so many people reflecting on the past decade, I can’t help but do the same. A little more than 10 years ago, I took the somewhat monumental decision to leave my home in London for Sydney Australia, on the other side of the world. It was an escape of sorts, a ploy to refresh my life. But I never intended to stay so long. I just wanted to work on the Olympics in 2000, a dream that came true with a job at broadcast rights holder The Seven Network. But the jobs kept coming, as did friends, loves, and so much more.
The “noughties” have been full of tragedies – September 11, the Boxing Day tsunami, the Bali bombings, which hit Australia very hard, and more. I’ve had my own personal tragedies, but so many things to enrich my experience of life. My task now is to build on the positive experiences as we move into a new decade. By 2020, I hope to have achieved a lot. Who knows what technology I’ll be using to communicate the story of the next 10 years of my life to you? We can only wait and see, but let’s not wait idle.
I’ve made a promise to myself this New Year. I’m going to immerse myself in life. I’m going to give more, share more, travel more, love more, play more, learn more, and by doing so, ultimately I’m going to be more.
So, without further ado, here’s my past 10 years – some of it illustrated, and in as discernible order as my old memory can manage . Having said that, everything here will never escape my memory, I hope. And to anyone that recognises themselves a part of this list, thank you so much … for everything.
A decade remembered
Leaving London for Sydney
Discovering (some of) Australia
Bronwyn
Working in magazines
Sydney 2000
A Melbourne road trip to see the British Lions
Getting a PS2
Australian Opens
Tragedy
Tears of sadness
Tears of joy
Visas
Salt Lake Olympic Winter Games 2002
Redundancy and TV
Downtime
Drums
Playing live
Recording studios
Working at News
Building a website and an audience
Red carpets
Getting an iPod
Winning a World Cup
Finding friends – the best friends
Losing loved ones
Ben
Reclaiming the Ashes (twice)
Discovering photography
Christmas and New Year 2006
Eirik
Social networks – MySpace
Unimaginable happiness
Ella
The Hopetoun Hotel
Too many goodbyes
Converting to XBOX360, and never looking back
Seeing great bands
Festivals
Travel
Love
Envy
Great weddings
Disappointment and struggle
Optimism
Discovery
And I’ll finish with a hope … a hope for new beginnings, for everyone that needs them.
Happy New Year.
OK – it’s been a few months since I posted one of these, so here’s what’s been happening in my ears for the past few months. I made a vague rule to highlight only five things, but I might break that for December since I’ve gone two months without posting.
Apparat ... sates that need for blips and beats.
Walls – Apparat
How we met: Whenever I catch up with my friend Morgan, we talk music a lot, and swap tales of new tunes. This was his contribution to our last catch up, so thanks Morgz.
Sounds like: Magnet mixed with NIN. Yeh, I know, weird.
Listen to when … you’re head needs some blips and beats on a bed of ambience.
Score: 9/10 – it’s always good to discover something different.
Absolutes – Barcelona
How we met: While watching Vimeo’s Favourite 25 clips of 2009. Barcelona provided the soundtrack to this one.
Sounds like: Indie deliciousness … A bit of Perishers and a bit of Keane.
Listen to when … you need bliss and a little heartache.
Score: 8/10 – someone described this to me as “blissful”. Spot on.
Only Revolutions – Biffy Clyro
How we met: At the music meat market that is the NME website.
Sounds like: Heavy metal, with a tinge of aluminium.
Listen to when … you want to leap around the living room, screaming and shaking your head around.
Score: 7/10 – whoa whoa whoa, yeh.
The Lemon Of Pink – The Books
How we met: This is old, yet untapped by me. We met when I was looking at pics and vids of Tokyo, wishing I could go back soon.
Sounds like: The soundtrack to a life – yours, mine, or maybe someone else’s.
Listen to when … you want to completely escape from the safety of everything you know.
Score: 9/10 – this is true audio exploration.
Doubt – Delphic
How we met: Saw a YouTube clip of them performing the title track on Later With Jools, and almost wet myself.
Sounds like: Bloc Party at their best, but arguably better.
Listen to when … you want to tap your feet and move your head in a funky manner.
Score: 10/10 -for one song. The full album isn’t out yet.
It’s Not Something But It Is Like Whatever – Errors
How we met: I can’t remember. I was hypnotised from the moment it happened.
Sounds like: Mogwai, Sigur Ros, but with some 80s dance beats too.
Listen to when … you’re stoned, high, talking nonsense and craving chips.
Score: 8/10 – variety is the spice.
Post-Nothing – Japandroids
How we met: Online … so not romantic.
Sounds like: The Mess Hall or White Stripes on acid. This Vancouver guitar/drums duo has what they have and more.
Listen to when … you want to dream of taking your teen band days to the mainstream. This is like nothing else you’ve heard, I’m sure.
Score: 9/10 – fuzzy awesomeness. “It’s raining in Vancouver, but I don’t give a fuck, because I’m alone with you tonight.” Lyrical gold.
Video Songs – Pomplamoose
How we met: On YouTube. I stumbled across an amazing cover of Michael Jackson’s Beat It
Sounds like: Hmmm … dunno. Pretty unique. A touch of folk, pop, mad beats and gorgeous vocals from Nataly Dawn.
Listen to when … you need to turn your frown upside down.
Score: 9/10 – check out Jack Conte’s solo work, too, and Nataly’s. She went straight on to my “Sing To Sleep” list. More on that another time 
OK … that’s quite enough for now. I feel all caught up and stuff. More to come in 2010. Can’t wait.
Passion Pit have kind of exploded this year. This isn’t one of their better known tracks, but it’s a cracker nonetheless. And the clip is absolutely brilliant. It was posted on Vimeo’s favourite 25 clips of 2009, as voted by the video sharing site’s staff. (There are several other amazing clips there to check out, FYI.)
Anyway, enjoy the clip. If you’re in Sydney, you can see Passion Pit live at The Metro Theatre, which I reckon will be an absolute riot.
I know it’s been ages, and I apologise to the two people that may or may not frequent this blog occasionally. It’s been a rough couple of months, but without going into detail, I thought I’d pop by to say I will be back, soon, with photos, music and more for those that are interested.
Promises promises … I’ll try to keep them this time.
Ciao … Foraggio
About a fortnight ago, I posted this to my Facebook page:
“The bravery of the modern photojournalist – Danfung Dennis shoots in the thick of Afghanistan battle on his 5D MkII”
There was a link to a 24-minute rough cut of Dennis’s photographic and videographic account of life with Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th US Marine Company, with whom he was embedded as it was dropped 18km behind enemy lines in Afghanistan to seize a key bridge. Within a few hours of landing, fierce fighting erupted and continued for three arduous and no doubt terrifying days. Lance Corporal Charles Sharp, from Adairsville, Georgia, was was shot and killed by a Taliban fighter.
The account and the images are as spectacular as they are frightening. You can see much more of his work on his website – much of which is spectacular.
The official trailer for Dennis’s documentary “Battle For Hearts And Minds” was released this week (watch above), and it’s a hard-hitting taste of a film that is bound to have an effect on anyone that watches it. It will get an online release, and I’ll let you know as soon as it’s up an away. It is guaranteed to be an emotional journey well worth watching.
Incidentally, a former colleague of mine posted a comment on my Facebook post after she was deeply moved by the 24-minute clip. She’d just welcomed her son home from the war in Afghanistan, alive and, mercifully, unharmed. Many mothers don’t get that privilege, and Dennis’s story is one we should all be across because of that.
There are young men dying all too often in far away, hostile environments fighting to help those less fortunate than ourselves to live peaceful lives free of terror, and the sort of harsh, unreasonable and unjustified regimes like that of the Taliban. The US Army’s tactic of winning hearts and minds is a noble one, but it is constantly hampered by the need to use force to weed out the defiant Taliban, which uses home ground advantage to force its opponent to make mistakes, causing the type of collateral damage that breeds mistrust and a reluctance to add their weight to the fight against the enemy.
Anyway, Dennis’s pictures speak far louder than my words, so take some time to look over them, and please post your comments and thoughts if you feel the need. War reporting is something I find fascinating, because I think the skill of holding a camera and documenting the history of conflict is an incredibly brave thing to do when all around you are fighting to survive. Dennis talks about how he manages and the tools of his trade here, if you’re interested.
The WAR exhibition that opened this week at the Australian Centre for Photography, featuring photos from the °SOUTH, is on of the strongest I’ve seen not only in Sydney, but anywhere.
For those that don’t know, °SOUTH is a collective for Australian photojournalists. The website labels the group as “a new collective of Australian photographers based throughout the Asia Pacific region, all of them working independently, all of them owning their archive of 20 years or more, all of them award winning, all of them photojournalists and all passionate about what they do.”
A young Viet Cong suspect cries after hearing a rifle shot. His captors, Chinese Nung tribesmen in the service of the U.S. Special Forces, pretended to shoot his father, a ruse designed to make the boy reveal information about Communist guerrillas. (Sean Flynn - SOUTH)
Sounds like a heavyweight group, and it is. It includes Stephen Dupont, who has been snapping conflicts for around two decades, and became a relative household name when he survived a suicide blast in Afghanistan, a place he shoots often and loves dearly. You can watch his story, produced by Journeyman Pictures, on YouTube. I recommend watching it – it’s a fascinating insight into the moral dilemmas all journalists in warzones have to battle every day.
Also part of °SOUTH was Sean Flynn. You may not have heard of him, but his father, Errol, you undoubtedly know about. Sean, in an attempt to escape the shadow of his actor father, fled Australia – Tasmania to be precise – to become a wonderful photojournalist, shooting in Vietnam during the war there. The Clash knew who he was, though, and even wrote a song about him on the 1984 album Combat Rock.
Flynn’s images are among my favourites in the exhibition, perhaps because the Vietnam War is one I’m fascinated by, especially having visited the country, where they call it the American War, and spoken to men and women who were there at the time, and seen the harsh environments that were the stage for so many brutal and, ultimately, meaningless fire fights.
Flynn went missing on assignment in Cambodia in 1970, according to his profile on the °SOUTH website. He’s listed there as an “absent friend”, but looking at his images, it’s clear he’s a loss to more than just his colleagues.
Do yourself and favour and check out his work at the exhibition if you’re in Sydney. His work, and that of his °SOUTH peers, is breathtaking, heartbreaking, eye-opening and incredibly humbling. It’s also inspirational, if you harbour dreams of taking up the role of a photojournalist in an capacity. Moments are all around us, but capturing the right one to tell your story is a skill that’s tough to develop.
“War is hell,” as they say, but remember, if these guys didn’t document it, and display incredible bravery in doing so, we’d never know.
As a local musician, constantly struggling to get airplay on Sydney’s radio stations and gigs in its ever-dwindling live music venues, I found this excellent essay by Ben Eltham both interesting, sometimes alarming, but overall very enlightening.
Thanks for putting in the effort, Ben. Good job.
I read an interesting interview with football Lothario Dwight Yorke by Paul Kimmage in The Times this morning. He’s doing the rounds after releasing his autobiography, aptly titled Born To Score.
I’ve pasted it below to spare you the pain of the newspaper’s appalling online pagination strategy, which split this across 13 pages without the option of reading it on a single one. (If anyone working there is reading this, please add that functionality. Cheap page impressions impress nobody.)
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the interview. Bottom line – Dwight is a bit of a knob, really. Mind you, he appears to think with his, so it makes sense.
“I had no complaints about his body: he had a fantastic six-pack, gorgeous muscular legs . . . but the chemistry between us wasn’t that strong. Our relationship was superficial. I was used to getting totally involved in my boyfriends’ lives, meeting their family and friends and really getting to know them. Dwight wasn’t like that at all. I just couldn’t get close to him.” — Katie Price, Being Jordan
Dwight Yorke likes to score; close his book and the conclusion is undeniable. He has scored in the back of a Glasgow taxi, on the banks of the Manchester
Dwight Yorke ... football's Lothario.
canal, a hat-trick in just 90 minutes once in Barcelona and four times in 24 hours during his time at Aston Villa. Wham bam thank you ma’am . . . And you ma’am . . . And you ma’am . . . And you.
He has done other stuff as well — cricket with Brian Lara, golf with Seve Ballesteros, a World Cup with Trinidad and Tobago, a League Cup with Villa, a treble with Manchester United — but it’s that old James Brown in him that keeps you turning the pages: “Get up, get on up. Get up, get on up. Stay on the scene, like a sex machine.”
We meet at his favourite hotel in London. He’s wearing a white baseball cap, some impressive bling and a shirt at least two sizes too small for him. Like Jordan, I have no complaints about his body: he has fantastic pecs, clearly muscular legs but I just couldn’t get close to him. Every time I reminded him of something he said in his book he seemed to back away.
The depiction of his father as an abusive, skirt-chasing, wife-beater? It was the nature of Tobagonian culture. The suggestion that his dalliance with Jordan was all about the headlines? He is appalled. And his assessment of Roy Keane’s failings at Sunderland have been misconstrued. “Roy Keane will make an exceptional manager,” he insists, but just not at club level.
Yorke, who is 37, is affable and clearly no fool but surprisingly guarded for a man with a penchant for al fresco love. He won’t do the interview without his personal assistant and repels any attempt to delve beneath his choirboy smile. Maybe there’s nothing there, but I’m not sure.
He clearly has commitment issues — and not just to his opinions. When his son Harvey was born he ran from the delivery room and created more headlines than anything he had achieved in his football career. But it is the birth of his second son, Orlando, that truly fascinates . . .
“I was listening to an interview you gave to Talksport yesterday and you mentioned you had seen Sir Alex Ferguson two days ago? Where was that?”
“At Old Trafford.”
“What were you doing there?”
“I went to see him as normal. I pop in occasionally just for a chat and to give him a book. The first book.”
“Your autobiography?”
“Yes.”
“Had he read the extracts in the News of the World?”
“I’m sure he was prompted . . . whether he read all of it, I don’t know.”
“Did he say anything about it?”
“No, he was quite . . . he left a message on my answering service [the night before] saying, ‘Mr Yorke, I’ve got my lawyers in place. You are banned from Old Trafford. You are banned from Tobago’. So I went to see him.”
“Did he say anything about Roy Keane?”
“No, it wasn’t mentioned.”
“Not at all?”
“No, we haven’t spoken about Roy.”
“Roy didn’t send you a text?”
“I certainly haven’t got a text from Roy this time round, no.”
“Well, it probably wouldn’t be too dissimilar to the last one ['Go f*ck yourself'] you got.”
“Or it might be worse,” he smiles.
“Have you read many books?” I ask.
“The last book I read was Bill Clinton’s, believe it or not.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I was fascinated at the insight into the most powerful man in the world at the time.”
“That’s interesting, I wouldn’t have picked that one.”
“There you go.”
“What did you learn about him?”
“What goes on in a president’s mind, how he has to work on a day-to-day basis and all the razzmatazz of his little . . .” He pauses and tries to find the word.
“Problem,” I suggest.
“Yeah.”
“His woman problem?”
“Yeah,” he smiles. “I find that fascinating.”
“So you have one thing in common,” I suggest.
“Do we?” he smiles.
“A woman problem.” He laughs.
“In the book, you write about your father’s problem, ‘I would later learn that most men on the island were what you would call womanisers and I’m sure my dad was no different’.”
“Yeah, well, that’s probably about right.”
“Would you class yourself as a womaniser?”
“I class myself as a man who enjoys women’s company, yeah.”
“Is that the same thing?”
“I don’t know, that’s for you to decide.”
“You lost your virginity at age 12 on a beach with an older girl.”
He starts laughing. “Why are you laughing?”
“I’m just a smiley type of guy.”
“Twelve is pretty young, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, very young. Don’t ask me how all that happened but even at that age I had a name in and around the village because of my football and stuff, so whether that attracted an older woman to a younger boy, I don’t know. I didn’t know what was happening at the time but it did happen.”
“There was a great American basketball player once called Wilt Chamberlain. Ever heard of him?”
“I’ve heard the name.”
“He reckoned that he had slept with 20,000 women during the course of his career.”
“I know who you are talking about now.”
“What about you?”
“I have no idea.”
“You don’t count?”
“I don’t count.”
“Four in 24 hours . . . Is that not counting?”
“That was a one-off.”
“What about love?” He chuckles. “Do you believe in true love?”
“I would like to think so but I haven’t experienced it, hence I am still single.”
“Is the reason you haven’t experienced it because you made a decision that when you meet a girl it’s for one night and that’s it?”
“No, it’s not like that at all.”
“That’s what you say in the book.”
“What! That it’s a one-off?”
“You say that girls knew when they went to bed with you that there was no commitment or, to quote you precisely, ‘No awkward I’ll-call-you moment’.”
“Well, no commitment doesn’t mean I won’t see them anymore. I’ve seen people [women] for months and it got to the stage where either they want more or it just hasn’t worked out. That’s what I meant. It’s not just a one-night stand.”
“Is love not commitment?”
“Yes, love is clearly commitment.”
“But you weren’t prepared to go that far?”
“Well, why go there if it’s not right? And it wasn’t right, not just from my point of view but often from the other person’s point of view.”
“So you’ve been smitten but not to the extent that you wanted to settle down?”
“Well, I was smitten by a few people.”
“Okay, let’s talk about one of them. We’re here in the Sanderson Hotel and you stayed here the first time you met Jordan [in December, 2000]. You had just drawn at Charlton and had been given Sunday off and were ready to hit the town. You meet at a club, buy her a drink, dance, find a McDonald’s and she surprises you by not wanting to have sex. Is that a fair representation of what happened?”
Yorke with Jordan ... she wanted what he couldn't give her.
“Pretty much.”
“In the book you write, ‘All I got was a bag of chicken nuggets and the definite sense of anti-climax. We’ll see, I thought, we’ll see’.”
“What did ‘We’ll see’ mean? That you would see her again?”
“Correct.”
“Why did you pursue it? What was the attraction of Jordan?”
“She’s an attractive girl, without a doubt. I enjoyed her company, the drinks and the little smooch we had. It was a good night and I felt comfortable . . . itwas nothing to do with [her] celebrity because I was playing for United so . . .”
“You describe going into training [on Monday] and saying, ‘Lads, you’re not going to believe who I was out with on Saturday.’ Was that part of the attraction? The bragging rights?”
“It wasn’t bragging rights. My team-mates knew I was out in London so it was like, ‘What’s happening?’ And I said, ‘You wouldn’t believe who I met’. It certainly wasn’t bragging rights.”
“In another passage you describe it as ‘the old Caribbean thing, the need to be the top man with the top girl’.”
“Is that a bad thing?” he asks.
“Is there not a certain insecurity in that?”
“I certainly didn’t feel insecure, not at all.”
“You say there are two sides to Jordan and that you liked the Katie Price side but were repelled by the monster — my description — Jordan. But you weren’t attracted to Katie, it was Jordan you pursued?”
“But that’s all I knew of her, I didn’t know her as Katie.”
“Okay, so you pursue her and you get together and you sleep together and the next day you go looking in the papers to, and I quote, ‘assess the interest’. Isn’t the bottom line here that you were as big a media whore as she was?”
“I don’t remember making that quote.”
“Would you like me to show it to you?”
“I take your word for it but I can’t remember saying that I actually went out the next day to look at the papers . . . anybody who knows me knows that’s not my style.”
Yorke’s brief and tempestuous relationship with Jordan marked the tipping point of his career. Tabloid fodder, he was dubbed “The King of Pornography” by the fanzines and shown the door by Ferguson. This is how he describes it in the book: “The news was crushing. Those were the lowest days of my career and now the determined bachelor at Old Trafford was paying for his single life. There was nobody around to find comfort with. Just a big empty house packed with possessions and material wealth.” The penny had finally dropped. Or had it?
“You describe that period of your life as extremely lonely. Was the need for sex a compensation for that?”
“At that time I think I used drink more.”
“Yes, but on other occasions . . . You had to have sex, were crazy for sex.”
“Yeah.”
“But you make several references to being lonely?”
“Yes.”
“Was sex a compensation for that?”
“It wasn’t just a need to have sex but a need to be with a woman. I didn’t sleep with every woman I met straight away. It may come across as that but it’s not.”
“Okay, well try and explain it to me, ‘The determined bachelor at Old Trafford was paying for his single life’.”
“I think at those times you probably need somebody you are in love with, or can find that comfort with; somebody you can be intimate with and share your life and talk to about different things.”
“But that’s an investment, isn’t it?”
“Of course.”
“Was it a regret?”
“There’s times in your career when you sit in your house and think, ‘I wish I gave this one [relationship] a better go and tried to make the situation work’.”
“But it didn’t change you?”
“No, not at all.”
“Why not?”
“Because I clearly didn’t feel comfortable committing myself at that time to whoever that person was. I enjoy my bachelor life. I’ve seen the hurtfulness when players divorce — and I’m not using that as an excuse. I didn’t meet the right person to make that one commitment.”
“Okay, well let’s talk about meeting the right person. You leave United for Blackburn and then Birmingham and meet Naomi. She doesn’t want anything to do with you at first but you pursue her and start a relationship. Then you get an offer to play in Sydney — ‘One of the most exciting capitals in the world packed with beautiful women. Could I commit to asking Naomi to join me with those thoughts in my head? I don’t think so.’ So you went to Sydney without her?”
“I went there without her, yeah.”
“Did you keep in touch?”
“She visited.”
“But it’s fair to say you weren’t celibate down there?”
“I had a good time.”
“You return to Manchester to prepare for the World Cup and resume your relationship with Naomi?”
“Yeah.”
“And then you meet a TV presenter, Charlotte Jackson, and begin a relationship with her.”
“It was a progressive thing with Charlotte — what is your point?”
“My point is that you were seeing both of them at the same time?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, this is the bit I don’t understand. You ask Naomi if she would like to have a baby?”
“Correct.”
“At a time when you are seeing Charlotte Jackson?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, now the reason that you give in the book for asking Jordan to have an abortion is because your relationship was going nowhere, and there’s a certain logic to that. What was the logic in asking Naomi to have your child at a time when you are seeing Charlotte Jackson? You won’t make a commitment to her but you want her to have your child.”
“How do you know what Naomi wants?”
“I don’t know. I’m presuming you asked her because that’s how you present it in the book.”
“Yes, I asked her to have a kid. Naomi was the one person in my life that I came close to really loving but I was smitten by Miss Jackson and I enjoyed my time with her and I was very much torn between them but I knew Naomi would have this kid and that’s how it panned out.”
“Given how strongly you felt for Naomi, why didn’t you make a commitment and give it a shot.”
“I knew you would ask that question,” he says.
“Is it not a fair question?”
“I think it is.”
“The issue again is commitment and this step you won’t make.”
“Yeah, but there was no particular reason behind it; I don’t think I’m afraid of commitment.”
“That’s how it appears.”
“Okay, but I think I am so used to a certain way of living and knowing I don’t have to answer to anybody at the end of the day. Maybe that’s what it all comes down to.”
“Naomi gave birth to your son, Orlando, in 2007. What’s the state of your relationship now?”
“Great, absolutely fantastic.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means great. I hook up with her when we can and we share each other’s company with the kid, share time that way, and that’s fantastic. I couldn’t ask for anything better at this stage.”
“But you don’t actually live together?”
“No.”
“She is still in Birmingham?”
“Yeah.”
“And she is okay with that?”
“I dunno . . . as far as I know she is very okay with it, yeah. We have a very good understanding.”
The interview is drawing to a close. I ask how it felt, standing in front of the camera and making the ad for the News of the World. His commitment was a surprise.
“I wasn’t 100 per cent comfortable with it but it was all part and parcel of trying to get the story and the book out there. Sometimes you have to do the ugly side of things. You don’t really want to but it comes with the territory.”
“But you have a choice in that,” I suggest.
“I suppose so but if you want to get your book out there and your story across then there are certain things that you have to do.”
“Not have to, choose to do,” I interject.
“Okay, choose to do,” he concurs.
We have reached the bottom line.
- Born To Score by Dwight Yorke, Macmillan, £17.99
- This story appeared originally in The Times
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