0:00:02 > 0:00:06This programme contains strong language
0:00:06 > 0:00:09Beside one of Scotland's most dazzling creations,
0:00:09 > 0:00:12lived one of the nation's most dazzling creative minds.
0:00:13 > 0:00:18Just three weeks ago, I went to Iain Banks' home on the shores of the Firth of Forth.
0:00:18 > 0:00:23It's where he wrote some of the most compelling fiction in a generation.
0:00:23 > 0:00:27And it was where he was to face his own death from cancer.
0:00:29 > 0:00:31This was to be his final interview.
0:00:42 > 0:00:45It's been almost 30 years
0:00:45 > 0:00:48since Iain Banks' remarkable debut, The Wasp Factory.
0:00:48 > 0:00:51It marked him out as a major new talent.
0:00:51 > 0:00:53Over the course of 29 books,
0:00:53 > 0:00:56he created an extraordinary body of work,
0:00:56 > 0:00:58with a very particular point of view.
0:00:58 > 0:01:02He combined both critical acclaim and popular success.
0:01:02 > 0:01:06His books are clever, controversial, funny, warm, political,
0:01:06 > 0:01:08and astoundingly imaginative.
0:01:08 > 0:01:12They reflect the personality of the man.
0:01:12 > 0:01:13Usually with my male central characters,
0:01:13 > 0:01:17they will be basically me, but in an idealised form,
0:01:17 > 0:01:20ie, taller, handsomer, younger,
0:01:20 > 0:01:21thinner of waist,
0:01:21 > 0:01:23and more successful with the ladies.
0:01:26 > 0:01:30Nowhere was the strength of that personality more evident
0:01:30 > 0:01:32than in the blog he published in April.
0:01:32 > 0:01:36He announced he was "officially very poorly", and had asked
0:01:36 > 0:01:40his long-term girlfriend to "do him the honour of becoming his widow".
0:01:41 > 0:01:45Iain Banks' final novel, The Quarry, is published next week.
0:01:45 > 0:01:48One of the main characters is dying of cancer.
0:01:48 > 0:01:52It's a visceral portrayal of a man furious at his approaching death.
0:01:54 > 0:01:58Iain, "I am officially very poorly", that statement sounds like
0:01:58 > 0:02:01the first line of an Iain Banks novel.
0:02:01 > 0:02:02I suppose it does, actually.
0:02:02 > 0:02:07And this idea that your novels are really like a hand grenade
0:02:07 > 0:02:11and yet you were delivered of your own extraordinary hand grenade in your life.
0:02:11 > 0:02:14Your first reaction to that was what?
0:02:14 > 0:02:20I think it was on the lines of "Oh, bugger!" Um...
0:02:20 > 0:02:24it's one of these things I guess in a sense you rehearse in your head.
0:02:24 > 0:02:26I think anyone kind of does it.
0:02:26 > 0:02:29You sort of game it, you play it, you think about how would I feel,
0:02:29 > 0:02:33how would I react if, you know, a loved one is, well, dies
0:02:33 > 0:02:36or is delivered of a verdict,
0:02:36 > 0:02:39you know, prognosis like that, as it were.
0:02:39 > 0:02:40And I think especially as a writer,
0:02:40 > 0:02:44and I think probably within a greater field, actors are probably
0:02:44 > 0:02:48the same when you have to take on
0:02:48 > 0:02:50the part of someone who's dying or dead,
0:02:50 > 0:02:55well, you know, if you're writing about people who are facing death
0:02:55 > 0:02:57and you automatically, you kind of have to embody that.
0:02:57 > 0:02:59You have to take that in quite seriously.
0:02:59 > 0:03:02And obviously there are professions that are very much involved
0:03:02 > 0:03:04with death, you know, funeral directors and so on
0:03:04 > 0:03:09and people in A&E and, you know, ambulance drivers and so on,
0:03:09 > 0:03:12you know the paramedics that come with the ambulance.
0:03:12 > 0:03:16I think you'll probably find a preponderance of people like that
0:03:16 > 0:03:18who are sort of pre-prepared,
0:03:18 > 0:03:22or as pre-prepared as you can be with your reaction.
0:03:22 > 0:03:25And I just took it as just, you know, bad luck, basically.
0:03:25 > 0:03:27It did strike me almost immediately,
0:03:27 > 0:03:30my atheist sort of thing kicked in and I thought, hah!
0:03:30 > 0:03:33If I was a God-botherer, I'd be thinking, "Why me, God?
0:03:33 > 0:03:36"What have I done to deserve this?"
0:03:36 > 0:03:39Don't know why I turned into a Jewish person there, but never mind.
0:03:39 > 0:03:43And I thought at least I'm free of that, at least I can simply,
0:03:43 > 0:03:46you know, sort of treat it as bad luck and get on with it.
0:03:46 > 0:03:48Humour has been at the heart...
0:03:48 > 0:03:52Very very black humour has been at the heart of so much of your work.
0:03:52 > 0:03:57I mean, does it help you get through different stages of this,
0:03:57 > 0:03:59just finding the humour in things?
0:03:59 > 0:04:01I guess so. It's not something you kind of do deliberately.
0:04:01 > 0:04:04I guess it's just there, it's an automatic reaction, and yes,
0:04:04 > 0:04:07obviously, with the loss factor, you go right back to the start.
0:04:07 > 0:04:10That was, you know, it was always meant to be a black comedy,
0:04:10 > 0:04:13that was very much the idea, and I...
0:04:15 > 0:04:18I occasionally get asked, if I could be a character in one of my novels,
0:04:18 > 0:04:20you know, who would it be?
0:04:20 > 0:04:23There's quite a limited choice, given the rather unpleasant ends
0:04:23 > 0:04:25that some of them come to.
0:04:25 > 0:04:29But were you...? The shock waves that came from the announcement have been phenomenal.
0:04:29 > 0:04:31Did they surprise you?
0:04:31 > 0:04:33"Astound" would be closer to it.
0:04:33 > 0:04:36Yeah, I mean, we deliberately released information
0:04:36 > 0:04:40on a day that we were about to head off to Venice with our pals
0:04:40 > 0:04:42and we wouldn't be coming back for ten days
0:04:42 > 0:04:45and I was pretty certain I'd be old news by then.
0:04:46 > 0:04:49I think, let's be fair here, though, it was a slow news day.
0:04:49 > 0:04:52Oh, I think you're underestimating your impact.
0:04:52 > 0:04:56I thought... We were just coming back through the Alps,
0:04:56 > 0:05:00heading from Venice to Paris, we got news of Thatcher dying.
0:05:00 > 0:05:04If Thatcher had died the same day that I'd put out my announcement,
0:05:04 > 0:05:06I wouldn't have been anywhere near the front page.
0:05:06 > 0:05:09I'd be lucky to get a diary entry on page 27 or whatever,
0:05:09 > 0:05:13and the equivalent on the BBC News and so on.
0:05:13 > 0:05:16So yeah, being on the front page of, you know, several newspapers
0:05:16 > 0:05:18was... That was kind of gobsmacking.
0:05:18 > 0:05:21The impact on people's lives, were you surprised at that?
0:05:21 > 0:05:25Oh, yeah, that came mostly through the website.
0:05:25 > 0:05:29A pal, Martin Bell, had this great idea for having this website
0:05:29 > 0:05:31so people could express what they wanted to express
0:05:31 > 0:05:36and I did say I'd read all of the posts, which I'm doing.
0:05:36 > 0:05:41I just read page 86, so only a hundred and a bit to go.
0:05:41 > 0:05:44And it was astonishing.
0:05:44 > 0:05:45I'm still... I'm only on day two now,
0:05:45 > 0:05:48about two days after the announcement, so...
0:05:48 > 0:05:51Because obviously you're in this situation, you're constantly trying
0:05:51 > 0:05:55to find the positives, you know, few and far between though they are.
0:05:55 > 0:05:58But one positive that did strike me,
0:05:58 > 0:06:00I'm getting all this love and admiration now
0:06:00 > 0:06:03rather than people standing around talking about me awfully well
0:06:03 > 0:06:06when I'm dead at the wake, or that sort of thing,
0:06:06 > 0:06:11so it's been great to appreciate that now while I'm still alive.
0:06:11 > 0:06:17You wrote The Quarry thinking it would be coming out this October or so forth
0:06:17 > 0:06:21and they're rushing it out, so tell me a bit about the writing of The Quarry.
0:06:21 > 0:06:25Well, it's, um... The narrator is an 18-year-old boy
0:06:25 > 0:06:28who's on one or two different spectra, as it were,
0:06:28 > 0:06:30possibly Asperger's being one of them.
0:06:30 > 0:06:34But in a sense the main character's his dad who's dying of cancer.
0:06:34 > 0:06:35Ha-ha! Ho-ho!
0:06:35 > 0:06:40But I was 87,000 words into the book before I discovered the bad news.
0:06:40 > 0:06:44I had no inkling, so it wasn't as though this is a response
0:06:44 > 0:06:48to the condition, to the disease or anything,
0:06:48 > 0:06:51and the book had been kind of ready to go.
0:06:51 > 0:06:54And then 10,000 words from the end, as it turned out,
0:06:54 > 0:06:56I suddenly discovered that I had cancer.
0:06:56 > 0:06:59I've really got to stop doing my research too late.
0:06:59 > 0:07:00This is such a bad idea.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03But the big thing, one of the big things about The Quarry,
0:07:03 > 0:07:06I mean, there's lots to talk about it, but one of the big things
0:07:06 > 0:07:10is that Guy, who has cancer and has aggressive cancer,
0:07:10 > 0:07:13is absolutely raging against the dying of the light.
0:07:13 > 0:07:16- Oh, yes, uh-huh. - I mean, he is furious.
0:07:16 > 0:07:21Well, I think, yeah, and in a sense justifiably so.
0:07:21 > 0:07:25First of all, he feels he hasn't done much with his life.
0:07:25 > 0:07:26Doesn't apply to me.
0:07:26 > 0:07:30You know, I've had a brilliant life basically and I think I've been
0:07:30 > 0:07:34more, even including the news of the cancer, I think I've still been
0:07:34 > 0:07:39more lucky than unlucky, but also, you know, I've written 29 books.
0:07:39 > 0:07:41I'm leaving a substantial body of work behind me.
0:07:41 > 0:07:45How long it'll survive, who knows, but I can be quite sort of
0:07:45 > 0:07:48you know, proud of that, and I am, you know.
0:07:48 > 0:07:51But also he's got this thing, he hates the idea
0:07:51 > 0:07:52of the world going on without him,
0:07:52 > 0:07:55which is kind of stupid but that's just
0:07:55 > 0:07:58part of his character, whereas it doesn't concern me in the least.
0:07:58 > 0:08:01That seems a bizarre thing to resent, you know,
0:08:03 > 0:08:07"I take the fucking point that if you have a choice of being
0:08:07 > 0:08:10"negative or positive about something like this,
0:08:10 > 0:08:13"you might as well be positive.
0:08:13 > 0:08:18"You can't do any harm even if it borders on self-delusion
0:08:18 > 0:08:22"and happy-clappy fuckwittery, but there's a funny fucking thing
0:08:22 > 0:08:24"about having terminal cancer.
0:08:25 > 0:08:29"I mean, apart from the hilarity of all the pain and the weakness
0:08:29 > 0:08:33"and the fear and the general humiliation of the disease
0:08:33 > 0:08:35"and the fucking treatments..."
0:08:36 > 0:08:37He breaks off to cough.
0:08:39 > 0:08:43"It makes it hard to be fucking positive about any fucking thing,
0:08:43 > 0:08:47"with the notable exception of feeling positive
0:08:47 > 0:08:49"that you're going to fucking die."
0:08:51 > 0:08:55You're 87,000 words into The Quarry then, and what changed
0:08:55 > 0:08:58after your diagnosis in the writing and the revision?
0:08:58 > 0:09:02Well, the first thing I did, I'd taken my laptop
0:09:02 > 0:09:06when I first got the original bad news, as it were, in Kirkcaldy
0:09:06 > 0:09:09in the Victoria Hospital and I'd taken my laptop in
0:09:09 > 0:09:13just to...just thought I might do a bit of work while I was there.
0:09:13 > 0:09:15And I couldn't really be bothered.
0:09:15 > 0:09:18I'd basically done my work, my words for the day anyway,
0:09:18 > 0:09:25so, having got this news, I sat in bed and I wrote -
0:09:25 > 0:09:30there's a bit where Guy says, "I shall not be upset
0:09:30 > 0:09:34"to leave this stupid bloody country and this idiotic, bloody human race
0:09:34 > 0:09:38"and this idiotic world" and the rest of it, it's a proper rant.
0:09:38 > 0:09:40I think it kind of changed places.
0:09:40 > 0:09:45Originally it was exactly where I got the news, it was exactly 87,000.
0:09:45 > 0:09:49It was changed slightly because my editor said, yes, it'd actually
0:09:49 > 0:09:54be more powerful in the sort of address on camera that he does,
0:09:54 > 0:09:57the recording, so we changed that.
0:09:57 > 0:10:00- That definitely worked better. - So he's recording into a tape?
0:10:00 > 0:10:04Yeah. And that was it, that was my one, so I thought, well...
0:10:04 > 0:10:07I remember sitting there, thinking, you're a writer, you know,
0:10:07 > 0:10:11you've got to use some of these feelings you're having right now.
0:10:11 > 0:10:14You know, use it to go to town on the whole idea,
0:10:14 > 0:10:18so some of my most darkest thoughts at that point were channelled
0:10:18 > 0:10:20into that bit of writing, you know.
0:10:20 > 0:10:22Other than that, that was kind of it.
0:10:22 > 0:10:26That was it out of my system, just the book rolled on because I knew
0:10:26 > 0:10:27what was going to be happening.
0:10:27 > 0:10:29You know, it was fairly well planned out,
0:10:29 > 0:10:33so that was the only extra bit, it was just me being all bitter.
0:10:34 > 0:10:38Getting your bitterness out in the character of Guy.
0:10:38 > 0:10:39Ideal medium, yeah.
0:10:40 > 0:10:45"And I shall not miss being part of a species lamentably ready
0:10:45 > 0:10:49"to resort to torture, rape and mass murder
0:10:49 > 0:10:53"just because some other poor fucker or fuckers
0:10:53 > 0:10:55"is or are slightly different from
0:10:55 > 0:10:59"those intent upon doing such harm,
0:10:59 > 0:11:01"be it because they happen to worship
0:11:01 > 0:11:05"a very slightly different set of superstitious idiocies,
0:11:05 > 0:11:09"possess skin occupying a non-identical position
0:11:09 > 0:11:12"on a pan-tone racial colour wheel,
0:11:12 > 0:11:16"or had the fucking temerity to pop out of a womb
0:11:16 > 0:11:19"on the other side of a river, ocean, mountain range,
0:11:19 > 0:11:26"other major geographical feature, or, indeed, just a straight line
0:11:26 > 0:11:31"drawn across the desert by some bored and ignorant bureaucrat
0:11:31 > 0:11:36"umpteen thousand miles away and a century ago.
0:11:36 > 0:11:39"None of these things shall I miss.
0:11:40 > 0:11:44"Frankly, it's a relief to be getting shot of the necessity
0:11:44 > 0:11:47"of watching such bollocks play out.
0:11:47 > 0:11:51"I would still rather have the choice, mark you,
0:11:51 > 0:11:55"but, as this would appear to be being denied me,
0:11:55 > 0:12:00"I am making the best of a bad job and looking on the bright side -
0:12:00 > 0:12:06"I shall be free, at last, of that nagging, persistent sensation
0:12:06 > 0:12:12"that I am, for the most part, surrounded by fucking idiots."
0:12:13 > 0:12:16It just seems uncanny that you should be writing
0:12:16 > 0:12:20a book about terminal cancer as you were given a diagnosis.
0:12:20 > 0:12:23Not only that, only Iain Banks could get the diagnosis,
0:12:23 > 0:12:26sit with his laptop and write about it there and then.
0:12:26 > 0:12:28Oh, no, I disagree.
0:12:28 > 0:12:32I think perhaps the majority of writers would do that.
0:12:32 > 0:12:34In the hospital with your laptop?
0:12:34 > 0:12:38It was there, you know, I was sort of - bugger!
0:12:38 > 0:12:41So you do have to, you know, I think it's a natural thing
0:12:41 > 0:12:44for a writer just to express themselves.
0:12:44 > 0:12:48You might not do it with the idea of immediate inclusion into the novel
0:12:48 > 0:12:51if that's what you're working on or whatever
0:12:51 > 0:12:53but because... I think it was just coincidence, you know.
0:12:53 > 0:12:56I think it was just the way things worked
0:12:56 > 0:12:59that I happened to have chosen that subject.
0:12:59 > 0:13:02But in the actual... in The Quarry itself,
0:13:02 > 0:13:06you're very unflinching about the impact of cancer,
0:13:06 > 0:13:09you know, even day-to-day impact of cancer.
0:13:09 > 0:13:11In fact, in a very Iain Banks way,
0:13:11 > 0:13:14you kind of relish some of that detail.
0:13:14 > 0:13:16Damn, it shows!
0:13:16 > 0:13:18Well, yeah, I think...
0:13:18 > 0:13:22You can't really pussyfoot around a subject like that
0:13:22 > 0:13:24and especially not when you've got someone like Guy
0:13:24 > 0:13:27who is just the character that he is.
0:13:27 > 0:13:31He's never going to sort of shy away from stuff, you know.
0:13:31 > 0:13:37But people say that you... That dark side, that kind of...
0:13:37 > 0:13:41thrawn and...
0:13:41 > 0:13:43thrawn is the way I see it -
0:13:43 > 0:13:46your characters are often very thrawn.
0:13:46 > 0:13:51To me, in a way, that is very much about...it is about Scotland.
0:13:51 > 0:13:53Oh, yeah, definitely, yeah.
0:13:53 > 0:13:56I mean, I've always, well, a lot...
0:13:56 > 0:13:59I didn't realise how Scottish I was in a sense for a long time.
0:13:59 > 0:14:03I remember shocking my parents when they were still here in the Ferry,
0:14:03 > 0:14:06the first time, so it would be before the age of nine,
0:14:06 > 0:14:10telling my mum and dad I felt more British than Scottish.
0:14:10 > 0:14:14"What?! You're no son of mine, get out!"
0:14:14 > 0:14:16I think that kind of changed,
0:14:16 > 0:14:19you kind of come to realise how much of your culture
0:14:19 > 0:14:21is specifically Scottish
0:14:21 > 0:14:24and I think it profoundly started to change
0:14:24 > 0:14:28when Thatcher came to power and realised that the era of one nation,
0:14:28 > 0:14:32you know, conservatism was gone, that was it.
0:14:32 > 0:14:35In a sense even more when Labour stopped being Labour
0:14:35 > 0:14:40and became New Labour and became big fans of privatisation, etc.
0:14:40 > 0:14:43I think Scottish people are just kind of automatically, you know,
0:14:43 > 0:14:46more communitarian, more socialist, if you like.
0:14:46 > 0:14:47I think that kind of has to be,
0:14:47 > 0:14:52it's only fair that that's reflected in the governments that we have
0:14:52 > 0:14:56- and we're part of the way down that road, but...- But it's...
0:14:56 > 0:14:59It seems to be your feeling about it seems more visceral now.
0:14:59 > 0:15:03You write in The Guardian about the whole UKIP experience as well.
0:15:03 > 0:15:07Do you think your own views have, not hardened,
0:15:07 > 0:15:11but become much more solid in the last year about Scotland?
0:15:11 > 0:15:15I think, well, I think it's been a process that has gone...
0:15:15 > 0:15:18taken longer than that. I think it's, you know, a good...
0:15:20 > 0:15:25But in a sense it's going back maybe 20-odd years or whatever.
0:15:25 > 0:15:27I mean, when I stopped voting Labour,
0:15:27 > 0:15:29I was casting around for who to vote for
0:15:29 > 0:15:32so I was just kind of voting for whoever had the biggest...
0:15:32 > 0:15:35Any sort of relatively serious party that had any sort of chance
0:15:35 > 0:15:38of being in power that had the most left-wing policies.
0:15:38 > 0:15:40That's why I started voting for the SNP.
0:15:40 > 0:15:42It was a purely pragmatic political,
0:15:42 > 0:15:45not nationalist thing at all
0:15:45 > 0:15:47and it's been just a gradual, you know,
0:15:47 > 0:15:52progression in a sense from that to becoming more nationalist about it.
0:15:52 > 0:15:54It's the only way to make sense of the difference.
0:15:54 > 0:15:57Do you think there is a role of a writer in cultural change
0:15:57 > 0:16:00to kind of help the readers through, through stories
0:16:00 > 0:16:04but not necessarily through, not kind of evangelising?
0:16:04 > 0:16:07Um, yeah, you've got to be very careful about that.
0:16:07 > 0:16:10It's very easy to, you know, a writer, to overstate
0:16:10 > 0:16:15the, um...you know, the influence that writers have.
0:16:15 > 0:16:17I think we're all a bit egotistical that way, as it were,
0:16:17 > 0:16:20"Yes, what I think's incredibly important, you should listen."
0:16:20 > 0:16:23That doesn't stop you having the odd rant. Look at Dead Air.
0:16:23 > 0:16:26I know - that is a book full of rants.
0:16:26 > 0:16:30That was the whole idea, to have a sort of a left-wing shock jock. Ha-ha!
0:16:31 > 0:16:35I leaned closer to the mike, lowering my voice.
0:16:35 > 0:16:40Phil closed his eyes. "Thought for today, listener.
0:16:40 > 0:16:43"For our American cousins."
0:16:43 > 0:16:45Phil groaned.
0:16:45 > 0:16:48"If you do find and kill Bin Laden,
0:16:48 > 0:16:51"assuming he is the piece of scum behind this,
0:16:51 > 0:16:53"or even if you just find his body..."
0:16:53 > 0:16:58I paused, watching the hands on the studio clock
0:16:58 > 0:17:01flick silently towards the top of the hour.
0:17:01 > 0:17:05Phil had taken his glasses off.
0:17:05 > 0:17:09"Wrap him in pigskin and bury him under Fort Knox.
0:17:10 > 0:17:14"I can even tell you how deep - 1,350 feet.
0:17:14 > 0:17:18"That's 110 storeys."
0:17:18 > 0:17:20Another pause.
0:17:20 > 0:17:23"Don't worry about that noise, listeners,
0:17:23 > 0:17:28"it's just the sound of my producer's head gently thumping on the desk.
0:17:28 > 0:17:32"Oh, one last thing - as it stands,
0:17:32 > 0:17:37"what happened last week wasn't an attack on democracy.
0:17:37 > 0:17:41"If it was, they'd have crashed a plane into Al Gore's house.
0:17:43 > 0:17:48"That's it for today. Talk to you tomorrow, if I'm still here.
0:17:48 > 0:17:54"News next, after these vital pieces of consumerist propaganda."
0:17:56 > 0:17:59That was great fun, loved writing that book.
0:17:59 > 0:18:02But yeah, I think you have to be careful.
0:18:02 > 0:18:06I think you're more likely to be reflecting more than leading, put it that way.
0:18:06 > 0:18:08You might see yourself as a figurehead
0:18:08 > 0:18:10but the figurehead doesn't produce the emotive energy.
0:18:10 > 0:18:12It's the sales that do.
0:18:12 > 0:18:15But the character of a nation is often underpinned
0:18:15 > 0:18:19by the culture of it, including the writing,
0:18:19 > 0:18:21and if I think about writers...
0:18:22 > 0:18:25..like, um...
0:18:25 > 0:18:28House Of The Green Shutters and Lanark,
0:18:28 > 0:18:31you're...to me you're the kind of inheritor of that.
0:18:31 > 0:18:34I mean, in a way, there's...
0:18:34 > 0:18:39there's a wonderful kind of humanity in the bleakness sometimes.
0:18:39 > 0:18:42I don't think I'm the inheritor, I mean, I'm deeply...
0:18:44 > 0:18:47..humbled to be put in the same category as Alasdair Gray,
0:18:47 > 0:18:51but he's still around, in fact he's going to outlive me as well, you know.
0:18:51 > 0:18:53So I can't believe I've inherited in that sense.
0:18:53 > 0:18:56But in Lanark, the inheritor of Lanark rather than...
0:18:56 > 0:19:00I...I wouldn't, I don't think I can accept that...
0:19:00 > 0:19:05I think it's the single greatest Scottish novel of the 20th century
0:19:05 > 0:19:09and no, that would be, that would be egotism a step too far
0:19:09 > 0:19:12even for my egotistical, you know, sort of outlook.
0:19:12 > 0:19:15But what did Lanark mean to you?
0:19:15 > 0:19:21I think it kind of taught me, although I was still, you know...
0:19:21 > 0:19:24I suppose I was still learning as a writer,
0:19:24 > 0:19:27I certainly was, in fact, but it kind of reminded me
0:19:27 > 0:19:29of the freedom you could give yourself
0:19:29 > 0:19:33and the ability to mix genres to include fantasy and science fiction
0:19:33 > 0:19:36in a sense and a means to...
0:19:36 > 0:19:40a Bildungsroman, and almost a historical novel.
0:19:40 > 0:19:43It was... And it's also the forthrightness
0:19:43 > 0:19:45of Alasdair's voice in there.
0:19:45 > 0:19:50It's so clear and it struck me over the years that the writers
0:19:50 > 0:19:53that I most admire, their writing is about clarity.
0:19:53 > 0:19:55Alasdair Gray achieves that.
0:19:55 > 0:19:58Mike Harrison, M John Harrison,
0:19:58 > 0:20:01whose ear I bent about a week ago
0:20:01 > 0:20:04telling him. We met up down in London
0:20:04 > 0:20:06and rather than send him a letter
0:20:06 > 0:20:09I just told him, you know, that I thought he was a bloody genius.
0:20:09 > 0:20:11But you've written to Alasdair Gray as well?
0:20:11 > 0:20:14I wrote to Alasdair Gray, yes, a fan-boy letter, basically,
0:20:14 > 0:20:18and said, "I know this is gushing and I know how hard it is to reply
0:20:18 > 0:20:21"to gushing stuff, so don't feel you have to reply."
0:20:21 > 0:20:25I didn't even put my own address on, to encourage him not to.
0:20:25 > 0:20:29Nevertheless he did reply and it was just a lovely lovely letter.
0:20:29 > 0:20:32It was really nice and beautifully put together.
0:20:32 > 0:20:34You can see the guy's an artist
0:20:34 > 0:20:37even when he's just writing a letter and it's gorgeous.
0:20:37 > 0:20:40Let's just go back to The Wasp Factory for a minute
0:20:40 > 0:20:46and from the very get-go, you talk about it as a black comedy,
0:20:46 > 0:20:50but it's a deeply moving book as well about a twisted childhood.
0:20:50 > 0:20:54Oh, yeah, it's meant basically to press as many buttons
0:20:54 > 0:20:58as is possible and kind of cheerfully going for
0:20:58 > 0:21:01the Grand Guignol, you know, sort of feel as well.
0:21:01 > 0:21:04It was an extraordinary...I mean, it was your first published novel.
0:21:04 > 0:21:08- Absolutely, yeah.- And it absolutely, that was a hand grenade.
0:21:08 > 0:21:10It was, yeah, it was the right book at the right time
0:21:10 > 0:21:14and by God it got me noticed, you know.
0:21:14 > 0:21:17And I'd been anticipating a slow build-up.
0:21:17 > 0:21:21I thought if I was lucky I'd get another couple of novels published
0:21:21 > 0:21:25and maybe hopefully if they sold more and more, then I might be able
0:21:25 > 0:21:29to give up the day job, and instead The Wasp Factory was just out there,
0:21:29 > 0:21:32just a huge sensation and all the adverse publicity was
0:21:32 > 0:21:37if anything more productive than the praise that it got.
0:21:37 > 0:21:41I don't know, maybe if it had come out a year before or a year after,
0:21:41 > 0:21:44it wouldn't have had the same effect. I don't know, but it certainly worked
0:21:44 > 0:21:45and I'm still very proud of it.
0:21:45 > 0:21:48There's none of the books that I'm not proud of.
0:21:48 > 0:21:50There's ones I think I could have done better with.
0:21:50 > 0:21:53I still think Canal Dreams is the runt of the litter
0:21:53 > 0:21:58but, yeah, I'm still very very proud of The Wasp Factory
0:21:58 > 0:22:01and it was... You were saying earlier about the quality,
0:22:01 > 0:22:04I realised as I was sitting there those couple of days
0:22:04 > 0:22:09coming up with the ideas that this is looking a bit like Wasp Factory.
0:22:09 > 0:22:10I thought, well, that's OK.
0:22:10 > 0:22:14You're allowed to have themes, you're not just always just repeating yourself
0:22:14 > 0:22:16if you have similarities between your novels.
0:22:16 > 0:22:19And I kind of just liked the idea of playing around with that
0:22:19 > 0:22:22and about the father/son relationship and...
0:22:22 > 0:22:23But I mean, there's a bit,
0:22:23 > 0:22:28you can almost see the workings in The Quarry.
0:22:28 > 0:22:30- Yeah, you know what I mean.- Yeah.
0:22:30 > 0:22:34When Kit talks about this thing about he's got, about trying
0:22:34 > 0:22:39to measure people accurately, and one of the methods he resorts to
0:22:39 > 0:22:42is wandering into the room at night when they're asleep and trying
0:22:42 > 0:22:46to measure them and how frustrating it is and almost nobody's stretched,
0:22:46 > 0:22:50lies stretched out like that, and everybody sort of curls up.
0:22:50 > 0:22:54But he goes through some pain to say, "But it's not like
0:22:54 > 0:22:56"I'm a mad axe murderer or anything," and that was almost there
0:22:56 > 0:23:00just because of the Wasp Factory, so you're reassured that Kit...
0:23:00 > 0:23:03- Kit's not going to be bumping people off.- Not murderous.
0:23:03 > 0:23:06No, Kit's not, Kit's a wonderful, gentle human being, but then,
0:23:06 > 0:23:10just going into some of the kind of set pieces in The Wasp Factory,
0:23:10 > 0:23:12I mean, the death of Esmeralda.
0:23:12 > 0:23:17I mean...extraordinary because you loved kites as well, didn't you?
0:23:17 > 0:23:20Oh, yeah, I used to make my own kites and it was...
0:23:20 > 0:23:24Used to...got big black bin liners and tape them to canes
0:23:24 > 0:23:28and take them up to the hills above Greenock and fly them.
0:23:28 > 0:23:35So I just remember, a good old windy day in Inverclyde
0:23:35 > 0:23:37and going, "Bloody hell!"
0:23:37 > 0:23:40Almost getting pulled off my feet, and I thought, if you were lighter,
0:23:40 > 0:23:44if you were a child, you would be pulled off your feet and thought, hmm, really?
0:23:44 > 0:23:47And because I, you know, from way back there, I still wanted,
0:23:47 > 0:23:50that was always my ambition, to be a writer, you just think,
0:23:50 > 0:23:54well, that's a way to kill somebody off if they're quite small.
0:23:55 > 0:23:59Esmeralda looked round one last time at me,
0:23:59 > 0:24:03giggling, and I laughed back.
0:24:03 > 0:24:07Then I let the lines go.
0:24:08 > 0:24:11The winch hit her in the small of the back and she yelped.
0:24:12 > 0:24:17Then she was dragged off her feet as the lines pulled her
0:24:17 > 0:24:21and the loops tightened around her wrists.
0:24:21 > 0:24:24I staggered back, partly to make it look good
0:24:24 > 0:24:28on the off-chance there was somebody watching
0:24:28 > 0:24:34and partly because letting go of the winch had put me off balance.
0:24:34 > 0:24:41I fell to the ground as Esmerelda left it forever.
0:24:43 > 0:24:48The kite just kept snapping and flapping and flapping and snapping
0:24:48 > 0:24:54and it hauled the girl off the earth and into the air, winch and all.
0:24:56 > 0:25:00I lay on my back and watched it for a second,
0:25:00 > 0:25:04then got up and ran after her as fast as I could,
0:25:04 > 0:25:09again just because I knew I couldn't catch her.
0:25:09 > 0:25:15She was screaming and waggling her legs for all she was worth,
0:25:15 > 0:25:19but the cruel loops of nylon had her about the wrists,
0:25:19 > 0:25:22the kite was in the jaws of the wind,
0:25:22 > 0:25:26and she was already well out of reach
0:25:26 > 0:25:30even if I had wanted to catch her.
0:25:30 > 0:25:37I ran and ran, jumping off a dune and rolling down its seaward face,
0:25:37 > 0:25:41watching the tiny struggling figure being hoisted
0:25:41 > 0:25:46farther and farther into the sky as the kite swept her away.
0:25:54 > 0:25:56'Childhood, often fraught and damaged,
0:25:56 > 0:26:00'plays a central role in Iain Banks' stories.'
0:26:00 > 0:26:02By contrast, his own was very happy,
0:26:02 > 0:26:05and mostly spent here in North Queensferry,
0:26:05 > 0:26:10and it's where he returned to live almost 20 years ago.
0:26:10 > 0:26:12This was a great place to grow up.
0:26:12 > 0:26:14Even if I'd only had indifferent parents,
0:26:14 > 0:26:19your average parents, it was such an adventure playground.
0:26:19 > 0:26:23There was even more of the military stuff left around, you know,
0:26:23 > 0:26:25First World War emplacements
0:26:25 > 0:26:28and Second World War anti-aircraft gun emplacements.
0:26:28 > 0:26:31It was just a great place to wander round.
0:26:31 > 0:26:35It's almost an island, it's got that lovely self-contained feel about it.
0:26:35 > 0:26:39Just three-quarters of an island, you know, this wee peninsula,
0:26:39 > 0:26:42but for the scale of a child it was absolutely perfect.
0:26:42 > 0:26:45- It seemed huge. - But even just being in the midst
0:26:45 > 0:26:47of these two great engineering feats.
0:26:47 > 0:26:49- Fantastic.- It was, yeah.
0:26:49 > 0:26:52I got to see the road bridge being built, and that was...
0:26:52 > 0:26:55that was fun, watching the whole thing come together
0:26:55 > 0:26:57and we saw it almost to the end,
0:26:57 > 0:26:59but it was always this one, it was always the Forth Bridge,
0:26:59 > 0:27:02the rail bridge itself, that was always...
0:27:02 > 0:27:05How wonderful it is. And there was something inevitable
0:27:05 > 0:27:09- that you'd have to use the bridge in your fiction?- I think so, yeah.
0:27:09 > 0:27:12It was, it's one of the...
0:27:12 > 0:27:15Almost, yeah, the only book I did that came to me in a dream.
0:27:15 > 0:27:17I just had this dream.
0:27:17 > 0:27:19I was living in Faversham in Kent at the time,
0:27:19 > 0:27:22and I had this dream about a gigantic version of the bridge,
0:27:22 > 0:27:24of this bridge,
0:27:24 > 0:27:29just on a different scale and the size of a city, in a sense,
0:27:29 > 0:27:35and I just woke up thinking, right, oh that's cool, that's nice.
0:27:35 > 0:27:38Be nice if all the books came that way, totally effortless.
0:27:40 > 0:27:44If he'd had less than the legal limit to drink
0:27:44 > 0:27:46he would take the Quattro out
0:27:46 > 0:27:51and drive to North Queensferry to sit beneath the great dark bridge,
0:27:51 > 0:27:56listening to the water lap against the stones and the trains rumble overhead.
0:27:56 > 0:28:00He would smoke a joint or just breathe the fresh air.
0:28:01 > 0:28:07If he felt pity for himself, it was only one timid, tentative
0:28:07 > 0:28:09part of his mind that felt so.
0:28:09 > 0:28:15There was another part of him which seemed like a hawk or an eagle,
0:28:15 > 0:28:20hungry and cruel and fanatically keen-eyed.
0:28:20 > 0:28:25Self-pity lasted a matter of seconds in the open.
0:28:25 > 0:28:30Then the bird of prey fell on it, tearing it, ripping it.
0:28:31 > 0:28:35The bird was the real world,
0:28:35 > 0:28:39a mercenary dispatched by his embarrassed conscience,
0:28:39 > 0:28:44the angry voice of all the people in the world, that vast majority
0:28:44 > 0:28:49who were worse off than he was - just common sense.
0:28:51 > 0:28:57He discovered, to his knowing, almost righteous dismay, that the bridge
0:28:57 > 0:29:02was not painted end-to-end over a neat three-year period.
0:29:02 > 0:29:05It was done piecemeal,
0:29:05 > 0:29:10and the cycle lasted anything between four and six years.
0:29:10 > 0:29:17Another myth bites the dust, he thought - par for the course.
0:29:18 > 0:29:21I think it had been such a large part of my life for so long,
0:29:21 > 0:29:26it was this gigantic symbol that had affected me in all sorts of ways.
0:29:26 > 0:29:29I think it's also there in the science fiction.
0:29:29 > 0:29:33I've just always liked big structures, you know!
0:29:33 > 0:29:36When you root some of your work in Scotland,
0:29:36 > 0:29:39that's one part of your imagination.
0:29:39 > 0:29:43The other part of your imagination's creating completely different worlds, for example the Culture,
0:29:43 > 0:29:48this kind of slightly very sarcastic kind of supergroup, as it were,
0:29:48 > 0:29:53- that kind of fly round the universe sorting things out.- Uh-huh.
0:29:53 > 0:29:56You like the idea of creating different worlds?
0:29:56 > 0:29:58I love it, yeah.
0:29:58 > 0:30:01There's an enormous freedom that you get in science fiction
0:30:01 > 0:30:04that you can just, you can go anywhere and do anything.
0:30:04 > 0:30:05It's that simple.
0:30:05 > 0:30:09The things that I love and things that I tend to read most
0:30:09 > 0:30:13are science fiction and, you know, mainstream literature.
0:30:13 > 0:30:15And those are what I love to write as well.
0:30:15 > 0:30:20And it's been a privilege in a way to be able to get away with it,
0:30:20 > 0:30:23you know, for an entire career, be able to do both.
0:30:23 > 0:30:26You do kind of feel sometimes you're doing the thing you're told,
0:30:26 > 0:30:29military people say you should never do,
0:30:29 > 0:30:31which is fight wars on two fronts
0:30:31 > 0:30:35but, you know, I think as long as you write fast enough and I write...
0:30:35 > 0:30:36Very fast.
0:30:36 > 0:30:39A book a year, which is not madly fast, you know.
0:30:39 > 0:30:43Terry Pratchett used to way outstrip me in terms of production.
0:30:43 > 0:30:46I think that, yeah, as long as you don't...
0:30:46 > 0:30:50It means that people are only ever a book away,
0:30:50 > 0:30:53two years away, as it were, from you know, their genre of choice
0:30:53 > 0:30:55if they don't read both so,
0:30:55 > 0:30:58yeah, that's been, you know, just fun, basically.
0:30:58 > 0:31:03But is the idea behind The Culture
0:31:03 > 0:31:08to imagine a world that you think, in a way, would be better?
0:31:08 > 0:31:11Yes, oh, it's didactic.
0:31:11 > 0:31:15It's my idea of what is as close as possible,
0:31:15 > 0:31:18as close as possible to anything remotely like us,
0:31:18 > 0:31:22as a species, could get to in terms of being, if not an actual utopia
0:31:22 > 0:31:26then a sort of functioning, as good as we're going to get utopia.
0:31:26 > 0:31:28Having said that, I think that,
0:31:28 > 0:31:31I don't think humanity is up to it, quite frankly.
0:31:31 > 0:31:33I think we're too nasty.
0:31:33 > 0:31:38We may find that there are genes that code for xenophobia.
0:31:38 > 0:31:42Well, there are genes that code for, you know, racism
0:31:42 > 0:31:46and sexism, for, you know, anti-Semitism,
0:31:46 > 0:31:51for Islamophobia, all the xenophobic things, all the things
0:31:51 > 0:31:55where we decide that we're this, we're one good privileged group and
0:31:55 > 0:31:57those bastards over there, well, we hate them.
0:31:57 > 0:31:59And all the excuses that we found,
0:31:59 > 0:32:03we find you know to be so deeply, deeply unpleasant each other.
0:32:03 > 0:32:09But do you find yourself despairing about humanity at the moment?
0:32:09 > 0:32:12Ach, a wee bit, yes, frankly, yeah.
0:32:12 > 0:32:16Yeah, I think just in terms of the world situation,
0:32:16 > 0:32:17it's not looking good.
0:32:17 > 0:32:22We haven't really dealt with the last economic disaster properly.
0:32:22 > 0:32:25We're just really heading up for another one, you know.
0:32:25 > 0:32:28Already this government, you know, the British government
0:32:28 > 0:32:32is stoking up the next housing bubble, which is just ludicrous.
0:32:32 > 0:32:35It's insanity.
0:32:35 > 0:32:38And, you know, Obama has been a bit of a disappointment.
0:32:40 > 0:32:45On Earth, one of the things that a large proportion of the locals
0:32:45 > 0:32:50is most proud of is this wonderful economic system which,
0:32:50 > 0:32:52with a sureness and certainty
0:32:52 > 0:32:56so comprehensive one could almost imagine the process bears
0:32:56 > 0:33:01some relation to their limited and limiting notions of either
0:33:01 > 0:33:07thermodynamics or God, all food, comfort, energy, shelter,
0:33:07 > 0:33:13space, fuel and sustenance gravitates naturally and easily
0:33:13 > 0:33:21away from those who need it most and towards those who need it least.
0:33:21 > 0:33:27Indeed, those on the receiving end of such largesse are often
0:33:27 > 0:33:32harmed unto death by its arrival, though the effects may take
0:33:32 > 0:33:36years and generations to manifest themselves.
0:33:38 > 0:33:40You make a statement in The State Of The Art,
0:33:40 > 0:33:43how could they have created a society where
0:33:43 > 0:33:46those who have get more and those who don't have get even less.
0:33:46 > 0:33:50I mean, it's like a credo that you believe very strongly,
0:33:50 > 0:33:52that we've got it wrong.
0:33:52 > 0:33:53Oh, absolutely, yeah.
0:33:53 > 0:33:58I think...the thing is, it's not impossible to correct things.
0:33:58 > 0:34:02I love the way people talk about, you know, blue sky thinking
0:34:02 > 0:34:05and yet you try to suggest anything properly radical,
0:34:05 > 0:34:07they just think you're completely insane.
0:34:07 > 0:34:09You can imagine for example a different form of capitalism.
0:34:09 > 0:34:12If you're not going to have a proper thorough-going revolution,
0:34:12 > 0:34:15I think a capitalism that didn't allow joint stock companies,
0:34:15 > 0:34:18where there's no such thing as a public limited company,
0:34:18 > 0:34:22where all...well what you'd have instead would be partnerships
0:34:22 > 0:34:25in the proper old-fashioned sense that there was unlimited liability
0:34:25 > 0:34:30and you wouldn't have this farcical belief that you can somehow
0:34:30 > 0:34:34turn a company into a person and the debts of the company are purely
0:34:34 > 0:34:38attached to it and not to the people that started it
0:34:38 > 0:34:41who would have benefited had it gone well.
0:34:41 > 0:34:44It might lead to a less dynamic form of capitalism
0:34:44 > 0:34:48but arguably, you know, the dynamic form of capitalism we've had
0:34:48 > 0:34:52has kind of messed us up rather a lot.
0:34:52 > 0:34:55But you are fascinated about civilisations in the future
0:34:55 > 0:34:58and, I mean, you must believe then presumably that out there
0:34:58 > 0:35:01somewhere in a galaxy far, far away there is life?
0:35:01 > 0:35:03Oh, probably, yes.
0:35:03 > 0:35:07I mean, there's so many stars in the galaxy and there's so many galaxies.
0:35:07 > 0:35:10And, you know, what we know of, what we can see of the universe,
0:35:10 > 0:35:13it would just seem highly unlikely that there's just us.
0:35:13 > 0:35:15I mean, we might not be that far away.
0:35:15 > 0:35:18One of the things I regret a great deal is that I'll not
0:35:18 > 0:35:20live long enough to see some of the results coming in from
0:35:20 > 0:35:24some really good telescopes we're putting in space, in particular.
0:35:24 > 0:35:29They'll actually be able to analyse the composition of exo planets,
0:35:29 > 0:35:33their atmosphere and you'll be able to tell whether
0:35:33 > 0:35:34they've got life on them.
0:35:34 > 0:35:37You'll be able to, all you do is you get, you know,
0:35:37 > 0:35:40you know exactly what the spectrum is of this star and as the star
0:35:40 > 0:35:46slips behind the planet, the way the spectrum alters,
0:35:46 > 0:35:48in other words, what's been taken out of it, will tell you how much
0:35:48 > 0:35:52carbon, how much oxygen, carbon dioxide and so on, how much oxygen
0:35:52 > 0:35:56and nitrogen, whatever, is in the, in that atmosphere of that planet.
0:35:56 > 0:35:59And that's an astounding thing to think that we're going to know this
0:35:59 > 0:36:01in, you know, 10, 20 years, you know.
0:36:01 > 0:36:04- Yeah, damned annoying. - HE LAUGHS
0:36:04 > 0:36:06Are you a kind of evangelising atheist in your work?
0:36:06 > 0:36:09I've been describing myself as an evangelical atheist
0:36:09 > 0:36:11for about 20 years, yes.
0:36:11 > 0:36:14It's not enough to be sitting in the corner going,
0:36:14 > 0:36:16well, I know I'm right, I'm not going to tell anybody else.
0:36:16 > 0:36:20No, no, you have to, you have to go up to people's doors almost.
0:36:20 > 0:36:23Have you discovered the power of atheism, brother?
0:36:23 > 0:36:25Much more effective.
0:36:25 > 0:36:26But what about, you don't...
0:36:26 > 0:36:29There's a tiny bit of agnosticism in there on the basis that
0:36:29 > 0:36:31if you think there are other lives on other planets,
0:36:31 > 0:36:33I seem to remember you said something,
0:36:33 > 0:36:36damn there might just be a God out there playing a trick on us.
0:36:36 > 0:36:38Oh could be, there has to be a sort of
0:36:38 > 0:36:42half a percent of, you know, of agnosticism in there
0:36:42 > 0:36:44just because you just never know.
0:36:44 > 0:36:48In a sense, because it seems so blatantly bloody obvious
0:36:48 > 0:36:51that there is no God and it's all just another nonsense
0:36:51 > 0:36:54so it's just, it's us expressing ourselves.
0:36:54 > 0:36:58And as I'm saying in that piece about basing our fears and hopes and
0:36:58 > 0:37:03so on, that well, you know it could just be some gigantic cosmic joke.
0:37:03 > 0:37:06But like Christopher Hitchens, are you anti-theist?
0:37:06 > 0:37:09Do you think that religion is actually actively evil?
0:37:09 > 0:37:12Not necessarily, and certainly not all the time.
0:37:12 > 0:37:15It is a comfort to people, apart from anything else, you know.
0:37:15 > 0:37:17But you'd say a false comfort?
0:37:17 > 0:37:21Yeah, but again, I keep coming back to the fact I could be wrong.
0:37:21 > 0:37:25And it's hard to know what else you'd put in place.
0:37:25 > 0:37:28In the end, I would love to see religion just wither away
0:37:28 > 0:37:32and, you know, just kind of be so exposed to reason
0:37:32 > 0:37:36and to rationality that it would simply cease to be.
0:37:36 > 0:37:39Or it would be very much a minority sport, as it were.
0:37:39 > 0:37:43But as actually evil, well, it can be, yes.
0:37:43 > 0:37:45I mean, it can certainly be.
0:37:45 > 0:37:49Evil's such a...kind of an all or nothing word, isn't it?
0:37:49 > 0:37:52- Mm-hmm.- Yes, it can be, you know but I mean it turned out
0:37:52 > 0:37:54so could communism as well, for that matter, you know.
0:37:54 > 0:37:58There's terrible crimes against humanity committed in its name.
0:37:58 > 0:38:02It was supposed to be all about people, not about religion at all.
0:38:02 > 0:38:04But you actively rail against, you know,
0:38:04 > 0:38:07the practice of different countries.
0:38:07 > 0:38:09You talk about Judaism
0:38:09 > 0:38:12because actually you're very anti Israel's politics, aren't you?
0:38:12 > 0:38:15Oh, yes but that has to be kept separate from...
0:38:15 > 0:38:18Yeah, quite different but you do actively campaign,
0:38:18 > 0:38:20you will not have your books sold in Israel, will you?
0:38:20 > 0:38:23For what it's worth, yeah, my little cultural boycott.
0:38:23 > 0:38:26I did the same thing once I realised that I could do it against
0:38:26 > 0:38:30South Africa but, you know, even less point there
0:38:30 > 0:38:33in a sense that it was a sporting boycott that kind of convinced
0:38:33 > 0:38:35a lot of South Africans.
0:38:35 > 0:38:39But do you think it's important to make a stand, however small it is?
0:38:39 > 0:38:42Cutting up your passport and sending it to Downing Street,
0:38:42 > 0:38:45were you just annoyed that afternoon to the extent that it
0:38:45 > 0:38:48was the only thing you thought you could do to make your protest clear?
0:38:48 > 0:38:52Oh, no, I did think about it. It was a fairly big step, you know.
0:38:52 > 0:38:55But I just felt ashamed to be British.
0:38:55 > 0:38:59I didn't want to, I'd kind of come to despise
0:38:59 > 0:39:01the symbol of British-ness, you know this thing where the queen
0:39:01 > 0:39:04graciously granted you the ability to travel abroad.
0:39:04 > 0:39:06Thank you very bloody much.
0:39:06 > 0:39:11And also you automatically become, you know, sort of at a minor
0:39:11 > 0:39:18level an ambassador for your country as soon as you travel,
0:39:22 > 0:39:24as soon as you travel abroad
0:39:24 > 0:39:27and I just didn't want to, to be doing that.
0:39:27 > 0:39:31But you were very actively anti, for example,
0:39:31 > 0:39:33the invasion of Iraq and so forth,
0:39:33 > 0:39:37I mean, that was really in the nature of your protest, wasn't it?
0:39:37 > 0:39:39Absolutely, yeah.
0:39:39 > 0:39:44I just thought it was unbelievably stupid.
0:39:45 > 0:39:52Well, it was immoral, unnecessary and it was illegal,
0:39:52 > 0:39:54simple as that.
0:39:54 > 0:39:58And the motives of the people who were promoting it
0:39:58 > 0:40:00were just, they were simply lying.
0:40:00 > 0:40:05You know, Bush was lying, Blair was lying, they were all just lying.
0:40:05 > 0:40:07Well, ya-bloody-hoo.
0:40:07 > 0:40:12One good thing, one decent image to come out of the war -
0:40:12 > 0:40:16the sight of Saddam's statue being toppled.
0:40:16 > 0:40:20But even this is poorly done, messy and staged and
0:40:20 > 0:40:23unauthentic and incomplete.
0:40:23 > 0:40:28The pictures show the awful bloody thing starting to tilt.
0:40:28 > 0:40:32Then they cut and when we see it next they have beefier
0:40:32 > 0:40:39chains on it and it's a US vehicle doing the pulling, not the locals.
0:40:39 > 0:40:44The statue falls, but does not detach from its plinth,
0:40:44 > 0:40:48two big metal reinforcing poles inside,
0:40:48 > 0:40:50anchoring it to the concrete.
0:40:50 > 0:40:56A US flag is put on top before somebody realises
0:40:56 > 0:41:02this might give out the wrong - for which read accurate - message,
0:41:02 > 0:41:06and an Iraqi flag is found instead.
0:41:06 > 0:41:12Oh, and still no WMDs, used, deployed,
0:41:12 > 0:41:15anywhere near being deployed,
0:41:15 > 0:41:20or even found stored in some dusty desert bunker.
0:41:23 > 0:41:25Do you believe if Scotland was independent
0:41:25 > 0:41:28it should take its place, not as a world's policeman,
0:41:28 > 0:41:31but actually being actively involved through NATO or whatever?
0:41:31 > 0:41:32I don't know about through NATO.
0:41:32 > 0:41:35I certainly think you could be a responsible part of
0:41:35 > 0:41:37the UN peacekeeping force.
0:41:37 > 0:41:41We have got quite a marshal sort of reputation and so on.
0:41:41 > 0:41:46But it would be, you know, quite a major part of,
0:41:46 > 0:41:49in fact, a major reason for voting for independence would be to
0:41:49 > 0:41:52never be involved, hopefully, in any of these, you know,
0:41:52 > 0:41:55disgraceful foreign adventures ever again.
0:41:55 > 0:41:56What do you do about Syria?
0:41:56 > 0:42:00I, I don't bloody know, I really don't.
0:42:00 > 0:42:03I think it is so...
0:42:03 > 0:42:06Do you believe we have a role at all in Syria?
0:42:06 > 0:42:09I think the role that we properly have is never to support
0:42:09 > 0:42:12these people in the first place.
0:42:12 > 0:42:15We should never have supported, you know, Saddam Hussein.
0:42:15 > 0:42:19We should never have been in even relatively close terms that
0:42:19 > 0:42:22we became with Colonel Gaddafi, latterly.
0:42:22 > 0:42:25We should just oppose tyrants from the start and
0:42:25 > 0:42:29I kind of despise this sort of realpolitik idea that
0:42:29 > 0:42:33my enemy's enemy is, you know my, friend.
0:42:33 > 0:42:37Nonsense. You know, it has no moral concept in there whatsoever.
0:42:37 > 0:42:39There's no moral part to it.
0:42:39 > 0:42:43Your enemy's enemy might be a bigger bastard than your enemy, you know.
0:42:43 > 0:42:49And it just, it's as ludicrous as...yeah, I guess that's evil.
0:42:49 > 0:42:53It's as evil as saying my country, right or wrong, you know.
0:42:53 > 0:42:56In that case, nothing that your country can do can ever be wrong then.
0:42:56 > 0:42:58That's just despicable.
0:42:58 > 0:43:00So there's no genocide,
0:43:00 > 0:43:04there's no amount of mass murder or torture that can be carried
0:43:04 > 0:43:06out that you won't disagree with.
0:43:06 > 0:43:11That's just utterly, utterly bizarre and genuinely evil sort of attitude.
0:43:11 > 0:43:13But do you believe in moral progress
0:43:13 > 0:43:16or are we in an arrested phase at the moment?
0:43:16 > 0:43:20I think the clutch is slipping at the moment, put it that way.
0:43:20 > 0:43:23I believe in moral progress, yes, of course.
0:43:23 > 0:43:26I mean, Steven Pinker wrote, I can't remember the name of the book now
0:43:26 > 0:43:30but I think we are gradually doing better.
0:43:30 > 0:43:33Fewer people are dying despite all the mayhem
0:43:33 > 0:43:36and the horribleness of which we see so much nowadays.
0:43:36 > 0:43:38Because of the media bringing it right to you.
0:43:38 > 0:43:41You know, we are killing fewer of ourselves
0:43:41 > 0:43:44so, yeah, there's moral progress. We've still got a way to go.
0:43:44 > 0:43:47You know, I'm not sure we're getting much more
0:43:47 > 0:43:50than a C on the report card but absolutely,
0:43:50 > 0:43:52yes, of course there's moral progress.
0:43:52 > 0:43:54But have you been extravagant?
0:43:54 > 0:43:57I mean, you have in the past slightly returned to
0:43:57 > 0:44:00being a petrol head but you were a petrol head in the past, weren't you?
0:44:00 > 0:44:01Oh, hell, yeah.
0:44:01 > 0:44:04- Yeah, well... - HE SIGHS
0:44:04 > 0:44:06Yes, it's this idea that because I'm going to be
0:44:06 > 0:44:08saving on all this carbon usage over the next, you know,
0:44:08 > 0:44:1520 or 30 years by the simple medium of dying, I thought
0:44:15 > 0:44:20yeah, I could indulge myself so yes, we have an M-5 now.
0:44:20 > 0:44:22This is a BMW M-5?
0:44:22 > 0:44:28BMW M-5 V-10 engine, 500 of your earth brake horsepower.
0:44:28 > 0:44:32By the side of Loch Fyne, I head north again
0:44:32 > 0:44:37and back down Glendaruel, finally having to press on once more
0:44:37 > 0:44:41as I've ever so slightly underestimated the time required -
0:44:41 > 0:44:46again - and so end up gunning the Defender up the long
0:44:46 > 0:44:52curving slopes towards the viewpoint looking out over the Kyles of Bute.
0:44:52 > 0:44:56This is one of the best views in Argyll,
0:44:56 > 0:44:59maybe one of the great views of Scotland -
0:44:59 > 0:45:03a vast, opening delta of ragged, joining lochs,
0:45:03 > 0:45:05flung arcs of islets
0:45:05 > 0:45:10and low-hilled island disappearing into the distance.
0:45:11 > 0:45:13And do you plan to drive it very fast?
0:45:13 > 0:45:18Oh, yes! No, not irresponsibly fast for that would be wrong.
0:45:18 > 0:45:19But, yeah...
0:45:19 > 0:45:22Doesn't really matter if you get a speeding ticket now though, does it?
0:45:22 > 0:45:24That's true, actually.
0:45:24 > 0:45:27But that need to get that kind of adrenaline buzz,
0:45:27 > 0:45:30you used to get that through drugs as well.
0:45:30 > 0:45:34A bit, yeah. I've got old though, I've kind of gone off my drugs
0:45:34 > 0:45:37which is quite a shame, you know. And I had to stop taking cocaine.
0:45:37 > 0:45:40Well two reasons, one was simply that it was bad for my heart.
0:45:40 > 0:45:42I used to get, I occasionally get arrhythmia anyway
0:45:42 > 0:45:46but it did that, you know, it kind of guaranteed that.
0:45:46 > 0:45:49But also, I just got so disgusted by the morals of the trade.
0:45:49 > 0:45:52- And the amount of cruelty... - I was going to ask you about that.
0:45:52 > 0:45:54..And murders that take place.
0:45:54 > 0:45:56You just couldn't, I just found it morally insupportable
0:45:56 > 0:45:59to even think about doing cocaine again.
0:45:59 > 0:46:01But in terms of the fast cars, that was,
0:46:01 > 0:46:03that was very much the excess of the era.
0:46:03 > 0:46:05You could never mix the two, of course.
0:46:05 > 0:46:08Yes, you could never mix presumably the cocaine and the fast cars.
0:46:08 > 0:46:10But on the fast cars bit, I mean, you could do that.
0:46:10 > 0:46:14I mean, here you were on the left but you were running round in Porsches.
0:46:14 > 0:46:16Oh, yeah. I have never understood this thing about
0:46:16 > 0:46:18champagne socialist.
0:46:18 > 0:46:21So? You know are Tories not allowed to swig beer?
0:46:21 > 0:46:23I think you'll find they are, you know.
0:46:23 > 0:46:25So I don't see anything wrong with that whatsoever.
0:46:25 > 0:46:28As I say, overpaid, got to get rid of it.
0:46:28 > 0:46:29You know, I can't...
0:46:29 > 0:46:32You know, we're quite good with causes and
0:46:32 > 0:46:35charities that sort of thing but, yeah, the money's there to be spent.
0:46:35 > 0:46:38And we've got some savings and so on.
0:46:38 > 0:46:45But do what you enjoy and I just bloody love fast cars, you know.
0:46:45 > 0:46:48But accompanying the fast cars is the music, and music's
0:46:48 > 0:46:52been a real importance to you in your, in your life.
0:46:52 > 0:46:54I mean, lots of people would say that but for you particularly
0:46:54 > 0:46:57because you can listen to music when you write and so forth.
0:46:57 > 0:47:01And has that been something that's given you solace just now?
0:47:01 > 0:47:06I think the solace is going to come because I write music, you know.
0:47:06 > 0:47:10I've pretensions towards being a composer.
0:47:10 > 0:47:12And that's what I intend to spend most of my creative
0:47:12 > 0:47:15energies on in the next couple of months or however long I've got,
0:47:15 > 0:47:18is writing music and trying to get it to some
0:47:18 > 0:47:21level of presentability so that should be accessible.
0:47:21 > 0:47:25Until now, this had been a private pastime for Iain,
0:47:25 > 0:47:27but he was ready to share it.
0:47:27 > 0:47:29OK, take me through what we have here.
0:47:29 > 0:47:33- Well, this is a list of songs, these are...- All composed by you?
0:47:33 > 0:47:37Oh, yeah, that's the whole idea.
0:47:37 > 0:47:41So the first about 60 songs go way back,
0:47:41 > 0:47:44go back to when I was at university and just, you know, plonking away
0:47:44 > 0:47:49on a guitar and inventing my own form of musical notation as well.
0:47:49 > 0:47:52You're not, you don't read that much music?
0:47:52 > 0:47:54I can, I can read it very, very slowly now, you know.
0:47:54 > 0:47:58But there's no real point, the thing about the software that I'm using
0:47:58 > 0:48:00here is you just don't need to.
0:48:00 > 0:48:03There's simply no need, no requirement whatsoever.
0:48:03 > 0:48:05So a very, very simple little song.
0:48:07 > 0:48:10You can see it's quite, it's only got a few tracks going
0:48:10 > 0:48:15but it's got the different instruments shown there.
0:48:15 > 0:48:17ELECTRONIC MUSIC PLAYS
0:48:19 > 0:48:21Simple as simple can be.
0:48:38 > 0:48:40And on it goes, much like that.
0:48:40 > 0:48:43I have a slight fetish for using as few instruments as possible,
0:48:43 > 0:48:46keeping the whole thing looking nice on the screen,
0:48:46 > 0:48:48which is probably completely irrelevant.
0:48:48 > 0:48:50But you might take something like this...
0:48:50 > 0:48:53Looking nice on the screen presumably has no relation to how it sounds?
0:48:53 > 0:48:56It's nothing whatsoever to do with it, you know.
0:48:56 > 0:48:58I try to get away without using chords
0:48:58 > 0:49:00because everyone else uses chords and starts from chords.
0:49:00 > 0:49:03So this is your own kind of modernism, is it?
0:49:03 > 0:49:06You could call it that if you wanted to dignify the process, yes.
0:49:06 > 0:49:08It's part of trying to stay away from the things that
0:49:08 > 0:49:10everybody else does.
0:49:10 > 0:49:13So I'm trying to produce something that is going to sound a bit...
0:49:13 > 0:49:15- Banksian? - Banksian if you like, yeah.
0:49:15 > 0:49:18So this is the symphony wot I wrote and I'm,
0:49:18 > 0:49:22well, I'm still slightly in the course of writing
0:49:22 > 0:49:26because it needs further tinkering with because it's such a long piece.
0:49:26 > 0:49:29There's always more you can do, it's a bit like a novel.
0:49:29 > 0:49:31A short story can be completely finished,
0:49:31 > 0:49:33- a novel in a sense can always be tinkered with.- Look at that!
0:49:33 > 0:49:35It looks so different from everything else.
0:49:35 > 0:49:38- God, it looks so complex. - Well that's because it is.
0:49:38 > 0:49:39HE LAUGHS
0:49:39 > 0:49:42MUSIC PLAYS
0:49:52 > 0:49:55This is the start of the second movement.
0:49:55 > 0:50:00It's a bit that I feel is the most finished of all the movements.
0:50:00 > 0:50:03It's a bit I've actually let people hear, you know.
0:50:17 > 0:50:19Little Scottish...
0:50:19 > 0:50:23Yeah, I think there is a sort of Scottish influence in there, yeah.
0:50:41 > 0:50:45Because it's been a hobby, it's been more fun than the writing
0:50:45 > 0:50:49because the writing is, well, how, you know, I earn my keep, basically.
0:50:49 > 0:50:52And, you know, my career depends on the writing
0:50:52 > 0:50:56and in a small way, you know, part of my publishers
0:50:56 > 0:51:00and book shop owners and so on and just your public,
0:51:00 > 0:51:03the people who actually are fans, you don't want to let them down.
0:51:03 > 0:51:05I only just do what I damn well please,
0:51:05 > 0:51:08well, that's always been the case, you know sort of until now.
0:51:08 > 0:51:12This was a hobby. It was simply meant to be a giggle.
0:51:12 > 0:51:15The only sad thing is you can't really do both at the same time.
0:51:15 > 0:51:18I can't write because I'm staring at a screen all day
0:51:18 > 0:51:20and the last thing I want to do is come and stare at a screen
0:51:20 > 0:51:24for the next two or three hours of me time, as it were.
0:51:24 > 0:51:27So I can only really do one at a time.
0:51:27 > 0:51:30So now that the, that's it basically with the writing,
0:51:30 > 0:51:33I can devote myself more to this, you know.
0:51:33 > 0:51:37And even if no-one ever hears it or no-one ever enjoys it,
0:51:37 > 0:51:38it'll be fun for me.
0:51:38 > 0:51:40It will be genuinely therapeutic.
0:51:40 > 0:51:44I just have such a, such a hoot with this.
0:51:45 > 0:51:48But did writing, did it always come easily to you?
0:51:48 > 0:51:52It appears to come easy. I mean, you write so quickly.
0:51:52 > 0:51:56Well, yeah, I say fairly. You know it doesn't really feel it.
0:51:56 > 0:52:01I'm only really, I'm only at the typeface for three months a year.
0:52:01 > 0:52:03The rest of my time is my own, you know.
0:52:03 > 0:52:06So yeah, well, I just found I like to
0:52:06 > 0:52:07get it out the way as fast as I can.
0:52:07 > 0:52:10I just want to, you know, go on and I get caught up in it
0:52:10 > 0:52:12and I can't really slow down.
0:52:12 > 0:52:15I just, I really need to, to get going.
0:52:15 > 0:52:18But when you're working, when you're writing, is it all-consuming?
0:52:18 > 0:52:20I mean, you just think about your characters all the time?
0:52:20 > 0:52:21Pretty much yeah.
0:52:21 > 0:52:24At the same time, I do try to write office hours
0:52:24 > 0:52:27so I've got time to socialise in the evening if necessary,
0:52:27 > 0:52:29and have weekends away with our pals.
0:52:29 > 0:52:33So it's not that totally all-consuming.
0:52:33 > 0:52:34I remember in the old days
0:52:34 > 0:52:38when I was working with...just, you know, sheets of paper and a
0:52:38 > 0:52:43manual typewriter, I'd think, right, OK, today I'm going to
0:52:43 > 0:52:47write 15 pages and I'd get to the end of that 15th page and stop.
0:52:47 > 0:52:50You know, I didn't sort of go onto the...no matter if it
0:52:50 > 0:52:53was in the middle of a sentence or some highly emotionally charged bit.
0:52:53 > 0:52:56Sort of that's it, I know where I'm going and I'm start off tomorrow.
0:52:56 > 0:53:00It's never been a problem. You fit instantly back into where you were.
0:53:00 > 0:53:04And what about your workings? Do you have lots of workings?
0:53:04 > 0:53:07- Yes, but I don't show them.- Ever?
0:53:07 > 0:53:09Well, no. I mean, I don't.
0:53:09 > 0:53:11Yeah, there's sort of notes and there's all sorts of, you know,
0:53:11 > 0:53:15all in electronic form in these days, I guess.
0:53:15 > 0:53:17I do print them out but, yeah,
0:53:17 > 0:53:19there's usually, you know, quite a lot.
0:53:19 > 0:53:22Well, I don't know, maybe 20, 30 pages maybe.
0:53:22 > 0:53:25Culture novel, 40 pages because it's more complicated.
0:53:26 > 0:53:28And that's just the initial...
0:53:28 > 0:53:30Ideally, what you want is just one page.
0:53:30 > 0:53:33It should always be about one page where you describe the
0:53:33 > 0:53:36whole plot of the book in whatever degree of brevity.
0:53:36 > 0:53:38And that way, you always know where you're going,
0:53:38 > 0:53:41you can see it in just the one sort of glance.
0:53:41 > 0:53:44But it changes, does it not? Or does yours not change?
0:53:44 > 0:53:48They're not supposed to change too much, the little blighters, no.
0:53:48 > 0:53:50The idea is, if you've done your planning properly,
0:53:50 > 0:53:53you just go with that. You're kind of ready to head off.
0:53:53 > 0:53:57Obviously the little extra things come to you as you write it
0:53:57 > 0:54:02and dialogue is always invented right there.
0:54:02 > 0:54:05It's sort of just-in-time production, as it were.
0:54:05 > 0:54:08But everything else should really have been thought out beforehand
0:54:08 > 0:54:12so you never sort of find yourself writing yourself into a corner or
0:54:12 > 0:54:16realising you killed that character off four chapters ago
0:54:16 > 0:54:19so why are you writing about him now, you know?
0:54:19 > 0:54:22And you want The Quarry out fast because you want to sell lots of books?
0:54:22 > 0:54:24I wanted to hold a copy.
0:54:24 > 0:54:27I might not be around in October, you know, so for them to bring it
0:54:27 > 0:54:32back to June, forward to June rather is just superb.
0:54:32 > 0:54:35Oh, yeah uh-huh. Yeah, it makes sense.
0:54:35 > 0:54:36And the fact that it's, you know,
0:54:36 > 0:54:39although it does start to look like a cunning plan of mine, doesn't it?
0:54:39 > 0:54:42I'll pretend I've got cancer and I'm actually fine and dandy,
0:54:42 > 0:54:45I'm hale and hearty and nothing wrong with me.
0:54:45 > 0:54:47And that way I'll sell more books out of sympathy.
0:54:47 > 0:54:49If only that were true!
0:54:49 > 0:54:51Are you still writing?
0:54:51 > 0:54:54No. No, I am going to try
0:54:54 > 0:54:59and get the plot for the next Culture novel together
0:54:59 > 0:55:06so that just in case there is some sort of miracle cure or whatever,
0:55:06 > 0:55:09I don't get to the end of the year going, "Aha, beat you cancer!
0:55:09 > 0:55:11"Oh, God, I haven't got a book to write, oh, no."
0:55:11 > 0:55:14So I'll do it just for that but also there's a very slim
0:55:14 > 0:55:17possibility, you know, that maybe somebody else could actually
0:55:17 > 0:55:20write it but I don't know, not sure about that.
0:55:20 > 0:55:22- How do you feel about that? - Mixed feelings.
0:55:22 > 0:55:25You know, in a way it would be better for it to be written,
0:55:25 > 0:55:27ach, it depends on the books.
0:55:27 > 0:55:31I haven't actually got the full suite of ideas yet for a start but...
0:55:31 > 0:55:34Are there any things you wish you'd done differently?
0:55:34 > 0:55:36Done differently?
0:55:36 > 0:55:39Ach, I don't know, that's one of those questions where you think -
0:55:39 > 0:55:43well, when you have a working time machine, you know,
0:55:43 > 0:55:45then we'll look at that seriously.
0:55:45 > 0:55:50So there's not really much point. I don't have many regrets in my life.
0:55:50 > 0:55:51I suppose I...
0:55:53 > 0:55:57Oh, like a lot of men, I've hurt women and didn't need,
0:55:57 > 0:56:01well, when I was being selfish or there's a degree of hurt towards
0:56:01 > 0:56:06ex girlfriends that probably didn't need to have happened but...
0:56:06 > 0:56:11That's probably the greatest series of regrets in my life.
0:56:11 > 0:56:16But other than that and certainly professionally, not really, no.
0:56:16 > 0:56:18Do you think that you are a selfish person?
0:56:18 > 0:56:20Oh, I know I'm a selfish person, yeah.
0:56:20 > 0:56:22That's why I try so hard to be nice.
0:56:22 > 0:56:25You know, it's compensation in a way, you know.
0:56:25 > 0:56:30I think of it as, being raised as an only child and one who,
0:56:30 > 0:56:35who's, who was kind of made to feel special as well in a sense,
0:56:35 > 0:56:41and just being an only child but also being, you know,
0:56:41 > 0:56:43living in your head as much as you do when you're a writer,
0:56:43 > 0:56:46and I think that kind of makes you selfish in a way, you know.
0:56:46 > 0:56:48Having said that, I don't want to make excuses for myself.
0:56:48 > 0:56:52I am just a naturally selfish person anyway but I do try to
0:56:52 > 0:56:58compensate for it by being nice to everybody else.
0:56:58 > 0:57:01What will happen to the Iain Banks' archive?
0:57:01 > 0:57:04I don't know, I think, I think...
0:57:04 > 0:57:07I got a letter the other day from the Scottish National Library
0:57:07 > 0:57:10but I can't remember if it was, I haven't properly dealt with it.
0:57:10 > 0:57:12I haven't replied to it, certainly.
0:57:12 > 0:57:15I can't remember if that was about everything or whatever.
0:57:15 > 0:57:18Archive sounds so grand, doesn't it, you know?
0:57:18 > 0:57:22I suppose if it was going to go an educational establishment,
0:57:22 > 0:57:24it would be Stirling because that's...
0:57:24 > 0:57:26- Stirling University where you went? - Where I went.
0:57:26 > 0:57:29I haven't really given it the amount of thought it obviously
0:57:29 > 0:57:33deserves and it needs but I will have it, I'll have a think, yeah.
0:57:33 > 0:57:36And might there be an Iain Banks or an Iain M Banks foundation?
0:57:36 > 0:57:39- HE LAUGHS - No. Don't think so, no.
0:57:41 > 0:57:43So have you made plans for your death?
0:57:43 > 0:57:49I've had a thought about, I guess it will just be the local crematorium.
0:57:49 > 0:57:53Adele has then promised to scatter my ashes in the Grand Canal
0:57:53 > 0:57:58in Venice, just a small amount, you know, but in secret if necessary.
0:57:58 > 0:58:00I don't know what the bylaws are.
0:58:00 > 0:58:06Grand Canal in Venice, in front of a certain cafe in Paris.
0:58:09 > 0:58:12Put some into a rocket to be fired over the Forth,
0:58:12 > 0:58:14again, quite a small amount.
0:58:14 > 0:58:20And oh, yeah, some onto a beach in Barra, Vatersay, whatever,
0:58:20 > 0:58:23but not too much in any.
0:58:23 > 0:58:25Most of them actually remain in the urn
0:58:25 > 0:58:30and be sunk where my dad's ashes are sunk in Loch Shiel.
0:58:30 > 0:58:32So wait a minute, some are going into a firework
0:58:32 > 0:58:36so Iain Banks is actually going to be fired into the universe?
0:58:36 > 0:58:39Oh, yeah, well into the, into the Forth, yeah.
0:58:39 > 0:58:41Hmm. Yeah.
0:58:41 > 0:58:45Still remaining entirely as in the atmosphere, I'm afraid, but yeah.
0:58:45 > 0:58:47- Iain Banks, thank you very much. - You're welcome.
0:58:47 > 0:58:48HE CHUCKLES
0:59:06 > 0:59:09Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd