You're listening to Love Stories, with me, Dolly Alderton, a series in which I talked

to guests about their most defining relationships, the passion, heartbreak, longing, familiarity

and fondness that has formed who they are.

My guest this week is the journalist and author Cosmo Landersman, American born but

London bred. His parents were Bohemians who brought him over from St. Louis to Islington

in the mid-60s, where he's remained ever since. He grew up in a house filled with the

literary, rock stars and extra marital lovers, more on that later.

In 1991, he founded the magazine The Modern Review with his then-wife, Julie Bertschill,

which covered low-brow culture for high-brow readers. He went on to become a popular journalist

for the spectator, the Times, the Daily Mail and the Guardian, and was the Sunday Times

film critic for 13 years, bringing his trademark honesty and dry and self-deprecating humour

to the job. In 2008, he published a memoir, Starstruck, about his eccentric upbringing,

his scandalous parents and their desperate bid for fame.

Cosmo and I first met when we were both put on the back page of the Sunday Times style

as dating columnists in 2015, where we wrote weekly installments, chronicling our trials

and travails in love for teen years.

The meaning of desperate search for love with each post we go on a date with.

Yeah, and it took me a while. I think you slipped into the role and the tone and the

parlance of the dating columnist much quicker and easier than I did. You're just because

you're a much more experienced and talented journalist. No, it's because I'm older and

I've had more dates than you, Dolly. That's probably the reason why.

But I think it took me a while to get the knack of it. And once I got the knack of it,

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