Iain Banks talks to Mark Lawson

[durham_rambler]

Yesterday evening, shewhomust and I watched the first two episodes of a repeat of The Crow Road on BBC4, which was followed by an interview with Iain Banks, conducted by Mark Lawson, which I see is being repeated tonight, at 1am (so technically Thursday if you are setting the video) and again Friday 17 November 3.25am-4.25am.

And I was impressed, I felt there wasn't any padding: there were a few brief clips but most of the time it was an intelligent and wide-ranging conversation between the two of them, conducted without any pressure of time. Among the snippets was that, when asked to name the authors he admired, the only name he came up with was Alan Moore, for Voice of the Fire though there were others admired but unnamed. He also disclosed, desperance are you listening?, that he had considered using the pseudonym of John B Macallan rather than Iain M Banks for Consider Phlebas..