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Questions for David Mitchell on the novel Ghostwritten by David Gaston, Zoe Fen Koh, Maki Komatsu, Maria Lebed, Nobuhiko Matsusaka, Jun Ohashi, Erika Yamauchi Tokyo University 12/01/2005 In Ghostwritten, we can’t agree which of your narrators is either the most or least successful. What do you think? And in a third category, which is your favourite? Maybe written characters are similar to acted characters: if you can forget that the illusion that this character on a page (or a movie screen) isn't a 'real' person, then it is successful. I think the most successful characters in GHOSTWRITTEN are those who are culturally closest to me. These are Neil Brose in Hong Kong and Marco in London. The furthest from me,

Times Column 8/01/05 The New Year in the Zurich Premiership kicked off with a sell-out.  At Worcester, Bath, Gloucester, Northampton, Harlequins and Newcastle, 64,000 supporters watched live club rugby on January 1st and 2nd.  This followed excellent attendances in Christmas week, when Leeds Tykes doubled a previous record crowd to over 14,000 for their clash with Jonny Wilkinson.  Jonny won, with three penalties and a drop goal, but Leeds are getting closer to that impressive Headingley capacity of 18,000.  To help get them there, it can’t hurt that later this month the England team will be training with the Tykes’ sister club and current Super League Champions, the Rhinos.  So it’s all aboard the England charabanc to Leeds, because if Andy

 Times Column 18/12/04 Not so long ago, Christmas would have been easier for everyone if rugby players had hung up their boots and taken up golf.  Finding a present for a golfer is easy.  You can spend less than 10 pounds for the next thirty years and still not reach the second shelf of pitch-mark repairers.  A rugby-player, on the other hand, needs a gum-shield.  Best get that from the dentist, not Santa.  And that’s it.  Until recently, there was simply nothing to buy.  Rugby union was a game first, and a set of values second.  And to protect those values, it was sincerely believed that rugby couldn’t survive Bill Beaumont putting his name on a book.  Commercialism would wilt

 Times Column 4/12/04 The Oxford-Cambridge match was once Twickenham’s landmark pre-Christmas fixture. It hardly mattered if it wasn't very good, because any rugby at all was better than none. As it happened, the game sometimes lived up to the optimism of its regular 50,000 light and dark blue supporters.  When Cambridge undergraduate Rob Andrew could be judged against Oxford undergraduate Stuart Barnes, the match still had meaning as an elite contest.  Some of the nation’s brightest young players would be scrutinised as they negotiated the pressures of a heaving Twickenham. Tuesday’s 123rd Varsity match is unlikely to offer a glimpse of tomorrow’s stars.  There are only four undergraduates in the starting line-ups, and Cambridge have 30-year-old Johnny Ufton at full-back. 

Times Column 20/11/04 Last week, South African coach Jake White supposedly gifted the Irish a winning psychological advantage by publicly criticising the quality of the men in green. This week, the Welsh management have avoided the term 'All Blacks' in favour of 'New Zealand', helpfully pointing out that the former suggests a rugby superpower while the latter is a 'poxy little Island in the Pacific.' Uh-oh. This doesn't seem a very sound approach, but pre-match psycho-scuffles can actually work   Most famously, David Campese and his big mouth, two of Australia's all-time great performers, managed to talk England out of their 'boring' game plan before the 1991 World Cup final. In the same decade, Brian Moore would annually reduce the

Times Column 6/11/04 When a referee gets noticed, the saying goes, he’s had a bad game. If so, then this season the refs are in trouble. Rob Andrew (who used to be such a nice boy) lashed into referee Sean Davey after only the second home game of the Premiership campaign. Chris White was booed at Welford Road.  The London Irish coach Gary Gold slammed refereeing standards throughout the league after his side’s one point home defeat to Leeds. These kind of cry-baby tantrums tend to happen more often before Christmas.  When Andrew had a go at Sean Davey, the season was only three matches old and Newcastle Falcons were top of the league.  It was still possible for Andrew