Amis: everything and nothing

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I am a big fan of Martin Amis. He is my favourite living author, and my second favourite author of all time (behind Jerome K Jerome).

Quite a while back I noticed that in interviews and speeches he often describes things as ‘sort of everything and nothing’. He seems to love describing things that way.

Well, I interviewed him once. It was agreed as a brisk, 15-minute interview about nuclear war in literature. I really hoped that he would use the phrase. The opening sentence of his first answer was: ‘Nuclear weapons – they’re sort of everything and nothing.’

What a guy. He will present a documentary on BBC4 this evening, called Martin Amis’s England. It’s had the chattering classes chattering all week, and I’m sure there will be further chatter on it in the days ahead.

In the meantime, here is a video of talk that he gave in 2007 alongside the late Christopher Hitchens. It was at a Jewish event and the pair speak about many topics including Israel, antisemitism, philosemitism and Saul Bellow.

The video is a little flickery for the first three minutes or so but stick with it. Both men are on fine form, oozing wit. My favourite parts are when Martin Amis reveals how he and his wife refer to their children, and Christopher Hitchens’ gag about a man whose job it is to watch out for the arrival of Moshiach.

Have a lovely day. I’m off to give another talk at Eton College.