Julie Burchill interview: ‘I don’t want to be normal’

Seeing Julie Burchill sitting at the back of the restaurant near Victoria Station, I feel a surge of affection. Chin up, sunglasses on, lips fixed in a pout, she is presenting her usual defiant face to the world. In the past, I’ve always thought of her as being like a screen goddess from Hollywood’s golden age — Marlene Dietrich, for instance. Now, she seems more like a fading Broadway diva and I half expect her to break into a rendition of ‘I’m Still Here’ by Stephen Sondheim.

The one-time enfant terrible of Fleet Street is now 53 and lives in Brighton, but she is very much still here. Earlier this year, a column she wrote for the Observer in which she referred to transsexuals as ‘bed-wetters in bad wigs’ caused no end of trouble and this month sees the re-release of Ambition, her 1989 bonkbuster about a female newspaper editor with a penchant for sadomasochism. This seems like a blatant attempt on the part of her publisher to cash in on the success of 50 Shades of Grey, a book Julie says she hasn’t read.

‘Remember how Gore Vidal said television’s for appearing on, not for watching?’ she says. ‘I feel a bit like that about porn. It’s for writing, not for reading.’

I’m a little nervous about seeing her, because the last time we had lunch we both got quite pissed and my wife takes a dim view of lunchtime drinking, particularly when I’m due to pick up the kids from school. But Julie allays my fears — initially, at least — by explaining that the reason she’s in London is because she’s just been to see a hypnotist in an effort to curb her excessive eating and drinking. Or, rather, for the purposes of writing a Daily Mail article about trying to curb her excessive eating and drinking, which isn’t quite the same thing.