Not only is Andrew Smith a sparklingly talented writer, he’s also someone I’m blessed to call a good friend.
It is an overcast and fairly drizzly early autumn afternoon when he meets me in central London, the weather slightly forcing me to rethink the exciting photo locations I’d been considering, ducking instead into bookshops and out of the rain.
(But also, bookshops are totally wizard and it’s always fun to find the Doctor Who section and compare which Target novelisations you own, isn’t it?)
Did I mention he’s a fantastically good writer? You may remember that time when he, as a young gentleman, wrote the Tom Baker serial Full Circle. You may also more recently remember that he’s written quite a bit for Big Finish. If you haven’t listened to The First Sontarans, for instance, do correct this. It’s brilliant.
It is with an adventurous twinkle - or rather, since I’m pretty sure he mentioned it in an email, I like to imagine there was an adventurous twinkle as he typed - that he mentioned having discovered, of all things, a Canadian-themed pub in London. Neither of us felt quite brave enough to try what passes for poutine in England that day, however, and we chatted instead over an afternoon pint.
Their lips met, tentatively at first. Soon enough, however, they moved beyond timid exploration and succumbed to the promise that had always lived between them.
Professor Duncan: I’m asking you if you know the difference between right and wrong. Jeff Winger: I discovered at a very early age that if I talked long enough I could make anything right or wrong. So either I’m god, or truth is relative. And either case booyah.
3x22 Introduction to Finality
Jeff Winger: I mean, guys like me, we’ll tell you there’s no right or wrong—there’s no real truths. And as long as we all believe that, guys like me can never lose. Because the truth is, I’m lying when I say there is no truth. The truth is—the pathetically, stupidly, inconveniently, obvious truth is, helping only ourselves is bad and helping each other is good.
1x01 Pilot
Professor Duncan: The average person has a much harder time saying ’booyah’ to moral relativism.
