I met him once: in Elaine's in New York in the late 90s and, yes, I was drunk. Fortunately, I told him that Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, which he wrote, is a great film -- a kind of weird, left-field masterpiece. I wasn't making it up, either. He was so chuffed he introduced me to his teenage son who was sitting in the back and got me to repeat everything I'd just said. The son was incredibly skeptical -- he thought, like most people, that Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is just a piece of soft porn trash -- so I told him how wrong he was and what a great writer his father is.

I interviewed Simon for the Spectator here.

Another Q & A about the film, this time with Cinematical.com.

At last, an interview about the movie in which everything I said has been transcribed exactly -- no condensing or editing has taken place here. The strange thing is, it makes me sound like a bit of an idiot.