It is 11am, in the Hotel Du Vin, a dark space just off the Brighton seafront. It is too late for breakfast and too early for lunch, so Mary is sent to order a vodka martini while Julie drags herself up the stairs to the bar balcony, apologising for the fact that she has recently developed gout: "The rich man's disease - comes from good living!" She is in fine fettle, cheerfully admitting that Made In Brighton, the book she is supposed to be publicising, doesn't do what it says on the tin. The jacket promises "a cold, hard look at the changing face of Britain", but Burchill had other ideas. She and her husband and co-author, Daniel Raven (brother of previous lover Charlotte), imagined a glorified diary, only to find that the publisher was expecting something to rival Jeremy Paxman's The English. They shared the writing, with most of the work going into Dan's chapters. Burchill's contributions are remoulds of her old newspaper columns, but still offer a reminder of what a great phrasemaker she is, dispensing contrariness like a Pick'n'Mix Dorothy Parker.
