After work I popped into London and headed for The Cartoon Museum in Wells Street (I've mentioned the place before here). It's a marvelous place full of original art by some of my illustration heroes. Just look at these pieces by Ralph Steadman and Ronald Searle, for example.
It's a place I've visited many times but today it was to see a new exhibition celebrating the 30th anniversary of Aardman's masterpiece of stop-motion - The Wrong Trousers - featuring, of course, Wallace and Gromit.
Steven Spielberg once described the train sequence at the end of the Oscar-winning film as the greatest four minutes in cinema history and I'm inclined to agree. The storytelling is fantastic, the visuals are technically brilliant and the script is hilarious. Sadly, many of Aardman's props and papers were destroyed in a catastrophic fire a few years ago but enough has survived to make up this little exhibition. It's wonderful. I am SO looking forward to the new Wallace and Gromit movie slated for 2024.
Then, following a brisk 10 minute walk, I arrived at BBC Broadcasting House, the preferred meeting place of another great storyteller.
Regardless of what anyone things thinks about the man himself, no one can dismiss the fact that Jeffery Archer can tell a good story. The fact that he has sold nearly 400 million books is testament to that. I can't begin to imagine how it would feel to sell that many of mine.
The interview was for the We'd Like a Word podcast that I co-host with m'chum Paul Waters, another author. You can catch the episode in a week or so. Meanwhile all of our previous episodes - which include interviews with the likes of Graham Norton, Julia Donaldson, Michael Douglas and many more - can be heard on iTunes, Spotify and pretty much wherever good podcasts are hosted. But here's a link for you.
We talk to authors but we also talk to anyone with a toe dipped into the worlds of writings and publishing. The next episode to go out talks to a professional book cover designer and in past shows we've had conversations with agents, commessioners, editors, proofreaders, publicists, poets and small press owners.
But. on this occasion, we had Jeffery talking about his new thriller Traitors Gate. We also discussed, among other things, the short story format and Jeffery dissected a story for us that came out of a newspaper challenge to write a complete story in 100 words. It was a fascinating chat.
So, watch out for that in the very near future.
Oh, and I asked him if he'd kindly sign my copy of Cat O'Nine Tails - one of his short story collections - which links back nicely to The Cartoon Museum as it's illustrated by Ronald Searle.
I might read it again now.
But first I'm going to rewatch The Wrong Trousers.
Oh, and this Youtube video of my day out:
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