Monkey's attention was belatedly brought to the splendid extracts from Lynn Barber's book A Curious Career in the Sunday Times magazine. In it, the former Penthouse, Sunday Express, Independent on Sunday, Vanity Fair, Daily Telegraph and Observer writer – described in the standfirst as "Britain's most fearless (and feared) interviewer" – recounts how she learned to ask people about sex. After a childhood in which she says her hobby was "being nosy", she went to Oxford and wound up working as an editorial assistant at Penthouse. She recalls: "I interviewed foot fetishists, voyeurs, transvestites, dominatrices, men who liked wearing nappies. You could say I started at the bottom." There then follow a string of episodes told in Barber's witty style, including a four-day interview with Salvador Dali in which the artist told her "Zee painters are always zee big masturbators – nevaire make love, only watch, and some-times masturbation! Zat is one good habit." The tale of her clash with Marianne Faithfull is also great reading – as she writes, "Hers was probably the most enjoyable interview I've ever done. She was late, rude, heroically self-deluded. The interview ended with her manager screaming insults at me until I flounced out of the restaurant. But I came out of our encounter thinking I can't wait to write this up. And when my editor rang the next day to ask how the interview went, instead of my usual laconic, 'Not bad' I said firmly: 'It was great!'" There is also the lively tale of her interview with Pete Doherty: "I find drug users very difficult to understand. Barely ever having taken drugs myself, I can never tell if they are 'on' something or how far gone they might be. Doherty at one point used a menthol inhaler and I got wildly excited thinking this must be some new way of snorting cocaine. Doherty mischievously urged me to try it – it had no effect at all, apart from clearing my sinuses." Great stuff – Monkey can't wait to read Barber's book.