HAVING had his portrait taken in the rather grand, galleried salon at the back of Daunt Books in Marylebone, author Sir Alexander McCall Smith takes a few minutes in a nearby cafe for a well-deserved cup of coffee, having left his Edinburgh home at 5am in order to catch a flight to London. Later that evening he would be back at Daunt's for the London launch of the 24th volume in his much-loved, Botswana-set 'No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency' series, which has also been made into a popular television show. Once again it features Mma Precious Ramotswe, the 'traditionally built' proprietor of the firm, who has another case to solve in the forthcoming 25th instalment out this month.
It is now 26 years since Ramotswe made her first appearance, paving the way for no fewer than four other literary series from McCall Smith's fecund pen, not the least of which are the '44 Scotland Street' novels, serialised daily in The Scotsman. All told, this quietly spoken former University of Edinburgh law professor has now sold 28 million books worldwide, and the 76-year-old was knighted in July by HM The King for his services to literature, academia and charity. But we're not here to talk about his astonishing literary success. We're here to discuss fishing, because McCall Smith is an absolute fiend for the rod.
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Rory Stewart - The former Cabinet minister and hit podcast host talks to Alec Marsh about the parlous state of British politics, land management and his deep love of the countryside
The gently spoken 51-year-old former Conservative Cabinet minister is a countryman at heart. That's clear: he even changes into a tweed waistcoat for the interview, which takes place at his London home and begins with a question about his precise career status. Having resigned from the Commons and the Conservative Party in 2019, the former diplomat and soldier has reinvented himself, first with an unconventional but promising run as an independent for the London mayoralty (abandoned because of COVID19 in 2020) and then as a media figure, co-hosting one of the country's most popular podcasts, The Rest Is Politics, alongside Alastair Campbell, the former Labour spin doctor.
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