James Palumbo on Tancredi’s End Time (interview Part 2)
“It’s a sort of everything crisis, isn’t it. It’s not just banking; it’s politics, it’s the way we run our health service, a social crisis. What started as the collapse of a bank is becoming the collapse of a nation.”
Ministry of Sound founder James Palumbo chatted to Skrufff last week to promote his second novel Tancredi, an apocalyptic Gulliver’s Travels style yarn that starts from the concept that ‘humankind has become so riddled with the disease of short-termism that it ignores its fate.’
“Tancredi decides to make it his mission to save them”, the book’s accompanying press release explains and, chatting to Skrufff today in the café of his South Kensington gym, James admits he shares more than a few preoccupations of his latest fictional character.
“Where a few people were inconvenienced before because Lehman Brothers collapsed now we have houses burning on the street,” he notes, speaking softly but intensely.
“One can sound very shrill and extreme talking about these things (saying that) the world is coming to an end: which isn’t a good look. But it’s difficult to see quite where it’s going to end,” he sighs.
Tancredi: click for more
While his debut novel Tomas (published soon after Lehman Brothers collapsed) dealt with themes of ‘bloated bankers, Russian roubles, salacious socialites and filthy footballers’, Tancredi dissects celebrity culture, in particular today’s short-termism and idiocy of reality TV. Writing it, James admits, was a tougher task than for Tomas.
“I think second books are problematic. The first one is a leap into the dark whereas with the second you’ve had more feedback,” he muses.
“How do I feel about how critics will respond to this one? I’m a little nervous and excited,” he says.
“What I noticed with Tomas was that it mainly attracted five star or one star reviews, and I didn’t mind the one star ones, shredding me (saying things like) “this is the infantile ramblings of a teenager’, ‘not worth the paper it’s written on’. That’s just fine, those reviews actually say as much about the reviewer as the author. The killer reviews are those which ‘this was a reasonable effort, but . . .’
“That’s what I’m watching out for. I’m wondering whether Tancredi will elicit such extreme reactions because it’s less dark than Tomas.”
James Palumbo- The Man from Ministry on Drugs (interview: part 1)
Click on the picture for Tancredi
“The reason I’m so against drugs is as a result of my City days where I’d see brokers who weren’t able to come in and pitch unless they’d been into the loo (toilet) and taken a line of cocaine. I just think it’s so fucking weak and pathetic.”
Chatting to Jonty Skrufff today in the restaurant of his South Kensington gym, Ministry of South founder James Palumbo is both disarmingly polite and beguilingly charming, even as his voice drips with contempt as he recalls his former high finance colleagues from the 80s.
“They’d come in all aggressive with their stupid clichéd sales pitches; ‘this is the deal for you’,” he shudders, “Whereas my style was always to be more considered.”
Though he remains best known for launching Britain’s first superclub Ministry of Sound and turning it into a reported £100million a year multi-media music and nightlife empire, he’s more recently turned his hand to novel writing, after passing day to day control of the club to CEO Lohan Presencer over five years ago.
Publishing his debut novel Tomas two years ago (a bizarre, surreal satire about ‘bloated bankers, Russian roubles, salacious socialites and filthy footballers’, he’s chatting today to promote follow up Tancredi, a similarly themed satire that this time starts from the concept that ‘humankind has become so riddled with the disease of short-termism that it ignores its fate’. (http://bit.ly/nD8g50 (Tancredi; trailer, Youtube)
That’s he’s talented as a writer is immediately apparent from a cursory glance through Tancredi’s self-penned accompanying autobiography, a gripping, fast paced narrative of privilege, guns and gangsters few other than Jeffrey Archer would have dared to invent, let alone live.)
“I was born with many advantages,” he begins.
“My family was wealthy and I had the best education, going to Eton, then Oxford. And yet despite it all, I never really conformed to the norms of my background. As with so many people, my life can be read as a struggle to find my own identity.” (http://bit.ly/nx98Bg
Exploring his identity initially by campaigning against (and over-turning) Eton’s centuries’ old fagging system (a Tom Brown’s School Days’ style system where young boys were forced to be servants for elders) he next set up an illegal butler service in LA before narrowly escaping being deported when US Immigration tracked him.
Arriving back in the UK, he went to Oxford University, set up a budget airline, sold it to Richard Branson (who renamed it Virgin) before giving in to convention and ending up a merchant banker.
“No one really knew what was involved; it just seemed the best and most glamorous way to make money. I kept up my wheeler-dealing, but to my shame joined the money herd,” James confesses.
“The seven years I spent in the City were the most depressing of my life, but I learned about hard work,” he muses.
“If you want to make money you have to sacrifice a lot, there’s little concept of a work/play balance. I rarely went on holiday, most weekends were spent in the office, everything was subordinated to the prime directive.”
“I shudder looking back: arriving at work for the 6.30 am meeting to hear an American voice on speaker telling us how the dollar would trade that day; talking clichéd nonsense to clients trying to solicit business; looking at the clock at 10.30 pm, wondering if it was too early to go home. What a mindless, soul-destroying life I led.”
Today he spends most mornings, cheerfully, in the gym.
“We’re meeting today at my gym because I’m an big exercise guy, I think if you’re fit you’re better able to do more,” he suggests.
Though he also owns up to being ‘very careful about what I eat’ he’s less rigid about alcohol, admitting he advises his 20 year old son ‘‘just drink vodka’. It’s delicious.”
“I try not to drink too much, though every so often I go a bit mad. I guess, deep down, the reason I’ve never taken drugs must be fear of losing control,” says James.
“A large part of me thinks doing drugs is unnecessary. I know I can drink vodka.”
“For example, I’m nervous about flying so I’ll have two or three vodkas and I’m happy. If I’m at a party and I want to anaesthetise myself because people are too boring then I’ll drink then too. Or perhaps I’ll have a really great cocktail. But I could never put anything in my nose.”
“I think it would fit the story more if I’d done drugs, but I have plenty of vices, Jonty, and I’ve done plenty of stuff. Maybe one day I will, who knows,” he smiles.
