The Times, July 5, 2008
- Ginny Dougary

In a frank interview, the famed writer talks about motherhood, Catholicism, her parents and soulmate Harold Pinter

Lady Antonia Fraser adjusts her pearls, gazes out of the french windows opening out to the garden, and tells me to f*** awf. This, five minutes into our interview, comes straight after her waving a two-fingered salute at Private Eye.

The Times, June 28, 2008
- Ginny Dougary

As well known for his epic drug taking as his iconic tales, Irvine Welsh seems now to be embracing middle age. But as he unveils his new novel, Ginny Dougary finds life in the old punk yet

The good news is that Irvine Welsh, having been obliged to give the subject some thought, does not believe that all men are potential paedophiles. What he does find interesting is that advertising and the mainstream media pander to a perceived tendency in men to respond to images of females captured on the cusp of puberty.

The Times, June 20, 2008
- Ginny Dougary

It took time, expense and stress - but I know how not to fix up your home

After my six-month odyssey to find a flat in London, following on from decades of family living in Nappy Valley in Wandsworth, I finally had a new home - but fresh challenges lay ahead.

The Times, June 14, 2008
- Ginny Dougary

John Humphrys has a reputation as the rottweiler of Today. But interrogating the interrogator, Ginny Dougary discovers a self-critical soul who talks of life, death, fear and fatherhood

John Humphrys, the so-called rottweiler of Radio 4, is in fact a pussycat. This would have been more of a surprise if I were one of the six million-odd regular listeners of the Today programme, where Humphrys has honed his interrupting skills with filibustering politicians over the past 21 years, but since I can think of nothing less soothing than starting my day with the soundtrack of argumentative discourse on governmental policy, this is not the case.

The Times, June 13, 2008
- Ginny Dougary

If your own search for a flat proves futile, it can pay to turn to the professionals

This time last year I was renting an open-plan flat high up in a mustard-coloured tower next to Tate Modern and thinking of writing something AbsoLoftly Fabulous about the renting life, with its bank of 24-hour porters and fishbowl windows. After my decades in Wandsworth’s Nappy Valley, it was more like the glamour of Sex and the City (without the racy bits).

The Times, May 16, 2008
- Ginny Dougary

Ginny Dougary on the pleasures of writing dirty songs for the Brighton City Singers

Artists, even those who are not fortunate enough to be represented by a gallery, can show their work in art fairs, restaurants and shops. Writers get to see their words in books and magazines. But what of poor composers, many of whom never have the chance to experience their pieces coming to life?

The Times, May 14, 2008
- Ginny Dougary

Shlomo, beatboxer extraordinaire, is a courteous, cleancut young man with good teeth. This I know because he bared them repeatedly while demonstrating the basic skills of a percussive vocalist - a lip-smackingly resonant “B-uh”, followed by a wide-grinned “T-uh” and the finale of an open-mouthed primal pout “K-uh” - in a masterclass conducted for the benefit of my 17-year-old son and his mother.

Ginny Dougary is nominated as Interviewer of the Year >>

Read more >>

The Times, April 5, 2008
- Ginny Dougary

George Clooney’s easy banter and high-brow films have made him the thinking person’s heart-throb. But what do we really know about him? Ginny Dougary has a close encounter with a most elusive superstar.

George Clooney is a guys’ guy, a gays’ guy and, obviously, a ladies’ man. It’s not just the looks and the voice, the irony (a slanting sense of humour not generally shared by his compatriots), the charm, the political awareness and unphoney compassion – an American who isn’t an embarrassment to America; it’s the whole package. He must be too good, surely, to be true?

BBC News, Friday, 4 April 2008
- Julian Joyce

Multi-millionaire poet and publisher Felix Dennis has retracted a drunken murder “confession” made to a newspaper journalist.

But even if Mr Dennis’s words turn out to be - as he says - “a load of hogwash”, how unusual is it for genuine murderers to risk their freedom by sharing their secrets?

Daily Mail, 3 April 2008

‘I killed him,’ Dennis told interviewer Ginny Dougary from The Times at his Warwickshire mansion. ‘That’s all you need to know.’

Read the entire story at The Daily Mail >>

The Guardian, Thursday April 3 2008
- Esther Addley

He has been jailed for obscenity, overcome an enthusiastic addiction to crack cocaine, and become a best-selling poet. But has he also killed a man? That was the dramatic claim made by the multimillionaire publisher Felix Dennis in a newspaper interview published yesterday, a statement he has since retracted, describing it as “a load of hogwash”.

The Guardian, Thursday April 3 2008
- Stephen Moss

‘I once killed a man.” It’s not a bad headline to put over an interview - in this case the estimable Ginny Dougary’s interview with Felix Dennis in the Times yesterday. Her paper obviously thought it was pretty good, too, as it slapped a photograph of the millionaire publisher on the front page with that quote underneath - a plug doubling as news.

The Guardian, Monday April 7 2008
- Ginny Dougary

When Felix Dennis ‘confessed’ to Ginny Dougary that he had killed a man, the interviewer faced a decision: file the sensational exclusive or fast-forward the tape. She has no doubts that she made the right choice.

The Times April 2, 2008
- Ginny Dougary

The Oz trial defendant who is now a billionaire publisher with an empire that includes Maxim and The Week talks about poetry, whores, his past addiction to crack cocaine and the time he killed a man - a confession he later retracts.