Love Sunshine

The face and dress sense for radio

I doubt if since the days when male presenters wore full evening dress at the BBC has someone cared so much about his appearance on radio. I'm on radio tomorrow, talking about my book Sunshine (which, incidentally, was Metro non-fiction book of the week today: http://www.metro.co.uk/metrolife/books/article.html?in_article_id=145309&in_page_id=28), and I'm as concerned as much about how I look as what I say. Why? The presenter is Robert Elms, a hero of mine, who, since he wrote in The Face, back in the day, has been a prime pontificator on stylish clobber and I rather fear I will not measure up to his exacting standards. Elms is obsessed about togs as I am about the sun. His book, The Way We Wore told the story of what it was like to grow up when dressing up mattered. I reviewed it in the Independent: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4159/is_20050424/ai_n14598703 because the world he described was a world I once knew. I hope I haven't completely gone gently into that good night of style oblivion, and so find this a daunting prospect. It's hard enough on live radio suppressing the desire to say something rude, or worrying about how crap your voice sounds, without worrying whether the presenter is shooting withering glances at your get up, or tutting at the presentation of your cuffs.

I'm sure he'll be a gent. But all the same, I'm tempted to conduct the whole interview under a buttoned up mackintosh. I bleedin need it in this weather. Will the sun never shine again?