Faber are confident that they'll sell a few copies of the book for the dedicated fans of Dr Who and especially the Tom Baker benevolent lunatics who will chance anything. Actually, I think there's a dedicated group, a very little group, of Tom Baker fans who are really into bad taste!

Some of the illustrations are wonderful, very much influenced by an American artist, Edward Gorrie, so they are dark and glowering and sly. I think children like all that. I've tried to write it from one's experience of children. You are always at a big distance aren't you? A young mother might be good at writing about a baby, but still, she'll probably be about 18 years older than the baby and so you are always that far on.

I told you I was seen for Lord of the Rings, the biggest film project in the world, I think , that starts in New Zealand in the New Year? The curious thing about Tolkien ( and Lewis) is that they are talking about children and events from a long time ago. I kept thinking when I was reading Lord of The Rings, especially that very wordy opening volume - it was hard work that! It's very much like a serious Wind in the Willows. The debate about those little people. There's some kind of high old comedy there and it would need brilliant handling because it's so densely written isn't it? Films are not about that are they? They are about the realisation of that in pictures.

I will be really interested to know if children read and like my book. If they'll laugh. The thing is, I deliberately made it so utterly violent that it is off the ground isn't it? You pile one thing on top of another so it's so outrageous that you don't get into the tragedy - it's just a kind of comic nightmare. The endless death scene of skidding on seven crow turds! Seven day of the week, seven deadly sins, children always seem to like those silly references.

If I record it, although I've found out that Faber don't have the recording rights which is interesting, instead of a straight recording, I think it should have sound effects. At the end when the rats are slithering away, just as my voice fades out, there should be the sound of rats - just to kind of lift it! The curious thing is that in children's homes where children are deprived and lonely, rats of course are the most popular pets because they are relatively clean and you are able to easily look after them and keep them with you inside your shirt. Those pet rats are so affectionate and wonderful whereas the street rats, the sewer rats, are terrifying, absolutely terrifying. A rat near a baby would be amazing, you know, a rat standing up on the side of a buggy looking into the baby's eyes. You'd think 'Wow!' But seeing a cat, or a white mouse, curled up there would be quite different. It's quite extraordinary, that!

When we had seventeen cats, we haven't got quite that many now, they sometimes gravitate into colours you know? The creams would go with the creams and the dark browns would curl up with the other dark browns - not all the time but sometimes they do. Strange that! We just had a cat come back after 9weeks away. She's come back wild, you know. Flea infested, so she's in a cage being pampered - I love all that drama! She must have been passing and thought 'Hello, I've been here before.' Like the opening of Brideshead Revisited! She was Jeremy Irons as Charles Ryder!

Jeremy Irons was on this film. Apparently he was very funny and I didn't know that! For years I've been saying how funny he was. Apparently I was quite shocked to hear how I'd been introducing him all these years. Somebody said that not only was he very funny, which I can't imagine, but he also plays the guitar quite charmingly and sings. I suppose it's the parts he gets. He gets those very gaunt, austere roles. Anyway, I missed him and Richard O'Brien, the author of The Rocky Horror Show. I was supposed to go out with him 2 weeks ago, but there was a shift in the schedule and I missed him. I really admire him. I'm often asked to go into The Rocky Horror Show, but I've never been asked to go in at the beginning. I've always been asked to take over about 4 or 5 times. So the 3, 4, or 5 times I've seen it I thought, 'I don't want to take this over, you know. I'd like to try and do it in a slightly different way.' This, of course, would be a disaster because cult things, you see, must be done the way they were done. In that sense, they've got the seeds of their own destruction that finally people will get tired of that form. You think that it's got to be revitalised, because the idea that you can only do The Rocky Horror Show one way is a bit absurd, isn't it? Why they don't is because when I saw it in Norwich, no not Norwich, some part of the country on the way to North Wales, when I saw it there, all the people were dancing as old as I am. They were reliving their youth. You won't know anything about that of course because you're still young and you'll always be younger than I am but you won't always be young. I seem to remember that one's youth is the basis of fandom isn't it really? How the fans are so kind to me and so loyal and often amuse me so much. I remind them of their youth or of their childhood and we all are very vulnerable to that. You see someone who reminds you of happy times, you feel almost grateful I'd dare say.

Going back is a quite natural thing isn't it? People say you never mind about the past, look forward. But you see the point is a lot of people future, all the people who try to be hopeful - we don't know anything about the future whereas we are our past. We are the consequences of our past. We talk in the past because we can select the bearable things in our past whereas the future, especially nowadays for so many young people is uncertain because the changes are so swift. If the changes are so swift, you think well, will I catch that train? Or it's like being at Clapham Junction and the trains are going so quickly, you say which one do I get on?

I wanted to make Robert Caligari interesting, also captivating because of course the extraordinary thing is, it seems to me, is that in real life we want to be secure and to have a nice house and we want the central heating and phone to work. We want the neighbours to be civilised and our lovers to be faithful to us. That's marvellous in real life, but in fiction, we're not interested in that. In fiction we're interested in horror, betrayal, bloodtaking, and disaster - that's the horror world we go into in our imagination. It's very interesting that. I don't think that you could probably write a novel now about a happy child. How could you do that? You can't even talk about happiness really. If someone said, 'How are Frances and Reg getting on?' You'd say ' Well, they are terribly happy'. They'd reply, 'Oh really? Oh well that's good. Three pints love, and a large gin and tonic.' That's the end of the conversation. But if you'd said 'They've split up.' 'Christ, they only got married last Wednesday!' Next thing, 'What happened then?' 'It was the best man and the groom, caught together within a quarter of an hour of the wedding.' 'What did her father say cause he's a boxer?' 'Well he fainted, then he died - he had a cardiac infarction.' And off you go! Whereas if it's happy, there's nothing to say about it. But that's what we want, we want to be happy. But in fiction we want nightmare and horror. The Bible is full of the consequences of stepping away. It's the greatest fiction of all. I'm inspired by the Bible. I adore tall stories!

I'm wondering whether I can do a free wheeling adaptation of Samson. That really takes you back, doesn't it? When he went out and caught those 300 foxes. I'd like to actually see that on an animation. He went out and caught 300 foxes and in pairs he tied their tails together (I don't know how). He put a lighted torch between their tails and turned them into a cornfield. They burned it down. Of course the Philistines were really pissed off with this!

This monologue from Tom Baker sharing his unique perspective on life and vaguely about writing "The Boy Who Kicked Pigs," first appeared in Celestial Toyroom © October 1999.

Screen Captures from: "Just Who On Earth Is Tom Baker?" -- A Reeltime Pictures Production Video -- © 1991

Midi file this page: Enya's "Once Gold".