The Monday interview Boris Johnson speaks to Sir Clive Sinclair
FOR some reason women pretend they don't understand. But why? say the girls in the features department with a frown.
They look at the "odd couple" pictures, the 159-IQ Professor Branestawm having his ginger-fuzzed dome stroked by some deep-chested lap-dancer, and they want an explanation - pronto.
So when the news breaks that romance has flowered between this modern Leonardo, and Angie Bowness, 21, 32-24-34, Nottingham beauty therapist turned artiste at Stringfellow's Cabaret of Angels, feminine curiosity will brook no delay.
Angie, Miss UK runner-up, comes to the Sinclair bed hot on the heels of such lovelies as Patsy Kensit's cousin Ruth, Howard's Way actress Sally Farmiloe, and "Hellmann's Mayonnaise girl Tricia Walsh". Find out what makes him do it, the features girls cry after me . . .
Though frankly the answer seems pretty obvious, and there are more pressing questions for the great man. The latest contraptions from Sinclair Research include a radio that fits in your ear and an electrically assisted bike called the Zeta II.
"Bikes haven't changed for 100 years. It is extraordinary," says Sir Clive Sinclair, who has been studying old meshes and gears. He blames the caution that sets in after the first explosion of innovation. "There's going to be a complete re-think," he says, starting with an ultra-light, foldaway cycle.
"Cars are going to be automatic and much sooner than we suppose. Within not too many years you won't be free to drive on a motorway," he prophesies. As for planes, it would be much more sensible if we all sat in a flying wing, a giant boomerang, if only the manufacturers would have the guts.
"They're frightened because the investment is so huge and if they get it wrong they are doomed," he says. But he has no doubt that "planes will have to go electric", if only for reasons of atmospheric pollution.
I have been a fan of Sir Clive Sinclair since some philanthropist gave me one of his computers, the ZX something. Clive is the man who revolutionised the pocket calculator, the digital watch. He is one of the builders of late 20th century civilisation.
The last time he was in this hotel, Claridges, he says, was in 1962, when he was demonstrating an FM transmitter to some American buyers. "I walked up the stairs over there with the receiver while a colleague transmitted the signal." The deal was done.
It is traditional to make fun of Clive's mobile coal-scuttle, the C5, and he himself says it was "not such a good idea". But hush, you cackling crows: the last time I was at an EU summit in Holland, guess what they were driving around the hangars: those self-same scooting bath-chairs. As for Sinclair computers, they are the number one brand in Russia. "That's why there's such trouble in Russia," he says with a blushing grin.
It strikes me that he must have a wonderful life, waking up in his vast King's Cross loft and wondering what to invent. He agrees that he hasn't been depressed for years, not since he ceased to run the computer business.
He is a free spirit, one of those happy few who don't mind saying in public: "I'm a Tory in so far as I am anything." He plays poker to a high standard. He runs. He has been married and has grown-up children.
He is a libertarian, and profoundly troubled by the squalor and poverty he sees around him in King's Cross. He asks: "Why did they boot out Frank Field? He was the only one with any ideas." Like the former minister, he sees the State as the author, not the cure, of dependency. Talking of libertarianism, I am jerked back to my mission: those dolly birds. I try a tactful question about cooking for himself, but for some reason the conversation lurches to Europe.
"I have never wanted us to be at the heart of Europe. I have always felt we had more in common with America and would like to see a union of the English-speaking peoples."
It's no use giving him the usual sermon about the single market. He knows all about the Dutch and the Germans, and the way they have tried to stop him selling his Zeta bike.
It's time to put the matter plainly. I ask him about the alleged enigma of the girlfriends and he answers with great good humour. "One doesn't just choose companions for their intellect - and a lot of them have tremendous intellect. Angie is very bright.
"When I go out with attractive older women it's not noticed. I have been out with very nice girls in their 40s and 50s and maybe will do again. It's very important to keep the company of a number of people of all ages."
It may or may not explain his strike rate, but Clive is a big fan of poetry, and learns passages he likes by heart. Which was the last passage he committed to memory?
"I can't remember." The human mind is like a computer, he says. The data is there, but it takes a while for the search engine to find it. Then it pops up as we are talking. "I remember now. It's a poem by Sassoon about, well now I am alone. "Alone: the word is life endured and known."
