COMPANIES Breadcrumb trail navigation: On Monday I went to the Dorchester to interview the film’s director Ron Howard for a Newsnight Review special about
the Oscars. I tried to play it cool about meeting Richie Cunningham in person and centred my questions on the conflict between reality and fiction in film rather than on Arnold’s Drive-In. Halfway through, an alarm sounded. Then, minutes later, another went off. Howard joked that this was obviously a BBC technique to make interviewees keep their answers short. If only such a device were available during political programmes. Hotel interviews with film directors and stars – or “junkets” – can be difficult, as an assistant usually sits by the celebrity’s side with a stopwatch and the interviewee’s eyes glaze over from days of being asked the same questions. For The Wrestler I was given exactly five minutes with its star, Mickey Rourke. I used to fantasise about meeting Rourke in the 1980s: we’d be playing pool in a Hollywood dive or drinking shots in a New York bar. When the encounter finally happened, though, it was less 9½ Weeks and more Pets Win Prizes . Rourke has changed a tad since the 1980s. Hard drinking, brawling, professional boxing and a lot of surgery doesn’t do a great deal for the complexion. I said hello but then admitted that I was rather disappointed. “Why” Rourke demanded. “Because I wanted to see Loki in her tracksuit.” (Loki is his pet chihuahua.) Rourke leapt from his chair and dashed out, to the consternation of the timekeepers. He returned with Loki, sat stroking her throughout the interview and called her the love of his life. This was a magic moment – Hollywood’s baddest boy behaving like Julian Clary. There aren’t so many chihuahuas on The World at One , though since it’s radio you’ll have to take my word for it. When we come off air and read the e-mails that have arrived from listeners it’s a bit like opening Pandora’s box. Oh for the days when all you received were a few letters written in green ink. Nowadays we get far more feedback from the audience as it’s far easier to dash off an angry e-mail than it is to put pen to paper. The epistolary complaints tended to be about grammar and pronunciation. E-mails range from the obscene to the furious, often with faintly sexist overtones. One listener regularly exhorts me to “get back to the knitting”. But there are some sweet ones. One of my recent favourites came from a listener who said: “One of your speakers has just talked about the worst snow in 18 years. My son just piped up, ‘It’s the best snow in 18 years’. ”
There was certainly plenty of fun to be had in the Big Freeze. I had to walk into BBC TV Centre in west London at seven o’clock in the morning. This took an hour and a quarter but there were some beautiful sights along the way. Shepherd’s Bush Green, normally the most urban of city parks, sandwiched between busy roads, looked like a village green. Even that early in the morning people had been building snowmen, though with an urban twist. One I saw sported a holster and gun. In Shepherd’s Bush, even the snowmen are tooled up.