There’s a special kind of magic to people who can take you right back to a time and place, making you experience what they did. People who are good at telling jokes, embroidering events, tickling a laugh out of the most mundane situations. Tall tales indeed.

I know why my neck cricks. It’s because of all the bloody phoner interviews I have to do. Pinching the phone between shoulder and ear, frantically scribbling (or typing) in a one-handed shorthand hybrid that even I can’t decipher afterwards… Explaining the awkward pauses away with sorry, I have to write that down, I’m doing this old school, ha ha! (Call me techno-challenged.) (Ed’s note: this was a decade ago, I’m way more high-tech now!)