Flying visits: Postcards from the Observer, 1976-83

Clive James has never been able to conceal his passion for air travel. Before he attained long trousers he could identify every aircraft that rattled the crockery in his house near Kingsford Smith aerodrome near Sydney, and he spent his adolescence making himself indispensible to the cleaners who swept out the planes. James' original two 'Postcards' to the Observer recorded his first return to Sydney after fifteen years in Europe. After that, Postcards arrived from around the world and became a popular occasional feature in that newspaper. James has reported from the Caucus Room in Washington D. C., where the U. S. Attorney-General was being grilled by Strom Thrumond,, from an institute in Shanghai where Margaret Thatcher was being grilled on biochemistry by smiling Chinese scientist, and from a secret lakeside restaurant in America where Kiri Te Kanawa was being grilled by Clive James. We learn that women's hairstyles play an important part in the Soviet economy, that diving into the Dead Sea should be attempted only with the eyes shut, and that Los Angeles freeways distort time and space to a point where Disneyland, when you arrive there, seems like reality. Journalist, critic, television performer, poet and novelist, Clive James is also a master of the art of travelling. He conveys his curiosity for both the great event and the telling detail with irresistible with and vitality.