G’day mate
Oh, who needs sleep anyway. Adrenalin works just as well. I hardly slept at all the whole time I was in London last autumn, and did that slow me down? Not that you’d notice. Except that I had a tendency to fall asleep the instant I set foot on any form of public transport. I seemed to have a terrible confusion between beds in darkened rooms, on the one hand, and moving vehicles packed with strangers, on the other. As a general rule it’s preferable to do one’s sleeping in the former rather than the latter, but I couldn’t seem to get it straight. Oh well.
Anyway I know right now I’m not likely to get any sleep at all tonight, because I have to be wide-awake very early tomorrow morning, and you know how that goes. Even if you could perfectly well sleep for, say, five hours, thus getting a decent (not opitmal, but decent) amount of sleep simply by setting the alarm – you don’t.
Very global, though, which is kind of fun. Three widely separated time zones. 5:30 a.m. one place, 1:30 in the afternoon another, and 11:30 at night yet another. Mixed. Very cosmopolitan.
My colleague and I are doing an interview (or a chaotic giggle-infested interruptive babble, more likely) for this here Australian Broadcasting Corporation tomorrow. So if you listen to it – you can hear us talking. Or rather alternately yammering and snorting with childish laughter. Then in the morning all of Australia will rush out in a body to buy the Dictionary. So who needs sleep? I have too much work to do anyway; a chance to work all night is just what I need.
Well, if it’s Phillip Adams running the show, you should have no complaints afterwards. He’s sharp enough. Somewhere (to be specific, in a container in or en route to Hamburg) I still have quite a few of his early ’70s pieces clipped from the Melbourne “Age.” Met him once in the mid-Eighties, in (where else?) a film vault in the Middle East. Took me quite by surprise. Good luck.
Yep that’s who it is. Golly, what a nice little panorama of your interesting life that brief comment gives.
I wish I could shrug it off with a nonchalant “I get around,” but the truth is more like “I got stuck and then got myself unstuck.”
Totally identify with both your not sleeping before having to be up early and the snoozing in public transport. Have you ever fallen asleep, missed your stop, gotten on in the other direction and fallen asleep and missed it again? If not, I win.
One word for you two narcolepts: Provigil.
“Have you ever fallen asleep, missed your stop, gotten on in the other direction and fallen asleep and missed it again?”
No, but I have been woken up at an airport by the blaring public address system searching for some idiot who had checked in but had not entered the aircraft: it went on for many irritating minutes before the aircraft finally left without him. As I finally got back to some peaceful dozing I suddenly realized that I was that idiot. Ever fail to recognize your own name?
OB, I caught the interview via the internet at 8:40am EST. I thought it went very well but it was way too short.
No, I’ve never done the sleep past stop thing either. I never fall that asleep, alas – if I did I could sleep on planes, and I can’t possibly.
Thanks, Joe. I thought it went very well too. I especially enjoyed the host’s roars of laughter over the Dictionary. What a lovely man!
Heard it over the web, with pauses for buffering in the middle of key words. I wasn’t timing, but I don’t think he gave you less time than the average item. Anyway, I certainly enjoyed it. “Shut up, I’m saying nice things about you.” What else could you require from an interviewer? You must report on the coming spike in Australian sales. Well done.
What else indeed. I think he’s a lovely fella. “You must have been pissing yourselves laughing, writing this.” Yup, that pretty much describes it.
Great interview, OB and JS. One of these days, when you’ve got some time on your hands, you should post a transcript of it on your website.
Brought me to this site! Thanks Phillip – never miss LNL. Thanks OB & JS.
Thanks back, Dennis. LNL seems to have brought us a lot of new readers; I’m glad one has finally spoken up here!
I like LNL, just listened to one now; glad I’ve been introduced to it.