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My name's Katie Lecky and I'm an assistant commissioner for on demand music on BBC Sounds.

The BBC has an incredible musical heritage and culture and as a music lover, I love being part of that.

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My castaway this week is the writer Lynn Barber. Her nickname, The Demon Barber, goes some way to explaining her unflinching and often excoriating style of interview. Over the past quarter of a century, she has picked apart in prose, Hollywood stars, cabinet ministers and contemporary artists. Quite an achievement in a celebrity world dominated by puff pieces and overzealous publicists. Critics say her

profiles are hatchet jobs. She famously asked Harriet Harmon if she was thick and reduced Chris Evans

to tears, whilst the artist Jake and Dinos Chapman said they would kill her if they ever set eyes on her again. But for her readers, if not her subjects, her writing is always revealing and brilliantly entertaining. I feel no guilt about being the sort of journalist I am, she says. I'm not ashamed of being nosy, and I'm rather suspicious of people who claim to have no curiosity about their fellow humans.

Your honesty in print, Lynne Barber, can be breathtaking.

How do you behave when you're actually meeting your interviewees face to face?

I think I'm very nice, you know, but I do ask quite blunt questions,

and I don't see the point particularly. But I do ask quite blunt questions,

and I don't see the point particularly in beating around the bush.

You know, I mean, if I'm trying to find out if Herit Harmon is thick,

I mean, it seems quite simple to ask her if she's thick, you know.

But I don't know.

I mean, I'm not tactful, that's for sure.

Do people flounce out often?

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