HANIF KUREISHI

The author answers back to cabbies and

goes to Café Rouge in his pyjamas

Best thing a cabbie has said to you? ‘How long did it take you to write The Kite Runner?’ To which I replied: ‘If I’d written The Kite Runner, I’d be in a limousine, not your f***ing cab.’ Favourite discovery? Saturday afternoons on the King’s Road in the 1960s and 1970s: it was a trail of peacocks with people showing off their clothes. I joined in wearing my father’s Indian waistcoat, a tiedye T-shirt and velvet trousers. Best place for a first date? An afternoon walk along the river from Hammersmith to Putney. Earliest London memory? From the age of ten, I used to come into town from Bromley to shop for books with my dad every Saturday. I remember watching him disappear up a ladder in some obscure secondhand bookshop. Biggest extravagance? Educating my children. Ever had a run-in with a policeman? Yes, the other day when my house was burgled. He came round and told me how I should make my house more secure and I told him he should be the one securing the bloody street. That shut him up. The Last Word is out now (Faber & Faber, £18.99). Hanif Kureishi will be at the Southbank Centre on 12 February (southbankcentre.co.uk)