OJ SIMPSON: SPORTING WITNESS

I was interviewed by the BBC World Service programme Sporting Witness, to talk about OJ Simpson as he was being released from prison. My part of the programme was to put his football abilities into context, though I also experienced his charisma first hand at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, where he was accompanied, I think, by Paula Barbieri (I'm not sure because he never introduced her, and there was a certain uniformity to some of his women: having just written about Hefner, you could see OJ buying into the whole Playboy Philosophy. Just check out his house before his lawyers gave it the right-on make-over!) You can link to the show here; it was produced by Simon Watts and it's worth a listen.

HUGH HEFNER: MY TAKE ON BBC LAST WORD

I appeared on Last Word last Friday, talking about Hugh Hefner, and the literary side of Playboy, which I was also writing about for TLS. You can link to it here. I mentioned Alex Haley, and they had a great quote from Hefner mentioning George Lincoln Rockwell, head of the American Nazi party; in my piece you can read the story of the that interview. It's a fascinating radio show: I wish I'd heard the other quotes included, but of course, as with the TLS piece, it goes into the wider picture of Hefner and society...and the London Playboy Club.

I BUY IT FOR THE ARTICLES: HUGH HEFNER, PLAYBOY, AND LITERATURE

I've done another essay for the TLS, about the literary content of Playboy; it was published yesterday and you can link to it here. It was frustrating to write in one sense: Hef turns out to be a a major figure in the culture of my lifetime, but also one who serves as a lightning-rod for many of the debates about that culture. I could have gone off any any number of tangents, but quite rightly TLS wanted to keep the focus on the written context of the magazine.

I hinted at the Howard Hughes analogy: remember Hughes designed bras, had countless affairs with starlets (sort of the equivalent of playmates and bunnies) but also with numerous big-name successful
actresses. He was a more active version of Hefner's playboy prototype, but like Hef he wound up living in a cocoon (in Hughes' case a germ-free one) indulging himself with movies. I might have to explore that one a little farther.