Alexander McCall Smith

Well, we've got the National Theatre of Scotland mentioned.

The national treasure of Scotland, Alexander McCall Smith, has written more than 100 novels.

And I was gonna say, uh, and counting, but everyone seems to have lost count of the exact number.

Do you have a figure in your head of the number of, uh, novels you've written?

Well, [laughs] we have some music here as well.

Uh, as far as that's concerned, we have, uh, Bruce Watson, uh, here with his new version of his band, Big Country, Big Country Redux, and the splendid singer-songwriter, Zoe Graham.

Uh, but, uh, let's start with, uh, Alexander McCall Smith, Sandy, if I may, whose, uh, many published works include the more than 25 novels inc- uh, featuring, uh, Precious Ramotswe, and The Number One Ladies' Detective Agency set in Botswana.

44 Scotland Street, and two or three other series of books set in Edinburgh.

[upbeat music] You're listening to the Positive Distraction podcast with Alexander McCall Smith.

Crime fiction usually deals with a murder, whether it's a murder in the library, as in Agatha Christie's books, or elsewhere.

But murder is a relatively rare crime.

But that was never a problem for a novelist.

That was where the imagination came in.

Thank you for joining Sir Alexander McCall Smith on his Positive Distraction podcast.

You can find Alexander's books and details of all his forthcoming events on his website, www.alexandermccallsmith.com. All are available to purchase in your local independent High Street bookshop, on Amazon, or on bookshop.org. Alexander is the much-loved author of global bestseller The Number One Ladies' Detective Agency, the long-running 44 Scotland Street serial novel, the Isabel Dalhousie novels, the new Perfect Passion Company series, and many standalone novels and short story collections.

In addition, he is known throughout the world for his reassuring, restorative poetry collections.

Um, and you were telling me that there's an East Coast novel that uses the morning roll in a slightly different way.

Yeah, there's this novel, I'm, I'm sure it was serialized at one point in The Scotsman, and it's called The Prime of Bertie Pollock by Alexander McCall Smith, and it's got an opening chapter to that novel called Breakfast Matters, and I...

It, it's about...

I, I just like the play on words with it.

I've shared the links below but I really recommend viewing them as there seems to be a big problem with pigeonholing in more ways than you would think, in very subtle ways than you would think.

He pulls out sort of the remains of the day or Alexander McCall Smith as writers who break this pigeonholing or preconceptions about who can write what story.

But even when you are trusted to write particular stories, you are still pigeonholed into perhaps writing historical fiction when you want to write something that is contemporary.

Maybe you are pigeonholed into writing in a particular location, rather than a particular area that you want to write in.

Today's producer is Olive Clancy.

Next week, Clive Anderson's guests in Scotland include Alexander McCall-Smith and the comedian Serena Terry.

But from me, Stuart McConey, for now, goodbye.

Could you talk about being invisible or double denim? Who knows what's next on the new series of Just A Minute?

Let's start with the landscape of dreams.

Alexander McCall Smith edited an anthology called Dream Angus.

It's entirely devoted to Angus, an early Celtic deity that the source text directly compares to Eros or the Roman Cupid.

Angus is a fascinating figure in the lore.

Bonne chance, said Miss Salad.

Thank you for joining Sir Alexander McCall Smith on his Positive Distraction podcast.

You can find Alexander's books and details of all his forthcoming events on his website, www.alexandermccallsmith.com. All are available to purchase in your local independent high street bookshop on Amazon or on bookshop.org. Alexander is the much-loved author of global bestseller The Number One Ladies' Detective Agency, the long-running 44 Scotland Street serial novel, the Isabel Dalhousie novels, the new Perfect Passion Company series, and many standalone novels and short story collections.

In addition, he is known throughout the world for his reassuring, restorative poetry collections.

Art is a two-way relationship because it activates our imaginations.

For example, the author Alexander McCall Smith, whose writing I love, has a new podcast called Positive Distraction.

Each episode is a short story written and read by the author.

It's a wonderful way to take a break from reality for a few minutes and withdraw into our imaginations.

Content, on the other hand, is a one-way relationship.

but it is a whole universe that you're creating so all like it's so complex there's a whole community there that i look forward to getting to know better and their cakes and their

i love the cake you know the cake reference you can always relate to just stopping for a bit of cake and i think that subconsciously came from uh i saw a talk with alexander mccall smith you know who wrote the number one lady detective's agency and i love that series And he talks about every time he's kind of waiting to see what's going to happen next, they have tea.

And they have tea a lot in that book.

And I just thought, what a great pause to just do, you know, my characters have coffee and cake, but cake is a good pause.

Well, take a community.

And I'm saying this only because regular listeners would have recently heard our podcast with Alexander McCall Smith, who famously wrote the number one ladies detective agency books and still does, which are all based in Botswana.

So you have lived and learned in Botswana.

Tell us what you learned.