Q. Do spoons play an important role in the lives of top writers such as yourselves ?

A. Pip: I remember we were working on a series for American television and...

Jane: ...the producer asked us whether we'd include a character who...

Pip: ...stirred his coffee when he was deducing the murderer. We thought this was a...

Jane:...very good idea.

Q. Your latest Rani CD - "Rani Reaps the Whirlspoon" - has sold well over five copies. Was it a difficult decision to write a drama about a megalomaniac spoon ?

A. Jane: The director of the National theatre once told us that our first...

Pip: ...play was so good he wouldn't produce it because it would...

Jane: ...over shadow everything else that they would ever make. We were a little disappointed but we...

Pip: ...used that disappointment as a basis for the emotional subtext of the...

Jane: ...latest Rani CD. The spoon was a metaphor for the emotional...

Pip: ...contusions we experienced.

Q. Would you ever cast a spoon in the lead role in a production of yours ?

A. Pip: As professional writers with over 100 books to our names...

Jane: ...we're often asked to contribute to the creative process and this...

Pip: ...we never like to do. We're writers not producers - you give us the brief...

Jane: ...and we'll produce the script. The rest is down to them. Although that being said, we think it would...

Pip: ...be a brave decision to cast a spoon and we like to think we've always...

Jane: ...been at the cutting edge of drama.

Q. You must've been delighted that Sylvester McCoy played the spoons in Time and the Rani.

A. Pip: That wasn't part of our original script - they made us look foolish...

Jane: ...which we didn't like at all - it really spoilt the seriousness of our...

Pip: ...script. The essential essence of the storyline with the giant tentacled braid composed of the mental energies of comatose geniuses was made to look silly by...

Jane: ...some silly man playing the spoons. We told John we wouldn't work for him any more after that...

Pip: ...although you can reassure your readers that we are very much...

Jane: ...non-spoonist writers.

Q. Has anything amusing ever happened to you in connection with a spoon ?

A. Pip: N...

Jane: ...o