This is a global original podcast.

Hello and welcome to full disclosure with me James O'Brien, a podcast project designed to let me spend a little bit more time than is usually available with people who I find, well, I mean interesting.

There isn't really much more of a criteria than that.

This week's guest, as ever, fits squarely into that category.

Although, oddly, Sartanam, Sangira, I already know an awful lot about you, or I feel I know an awful lot about you.

And we've never actually met.

You even dated my sister-in-law on a couple of occasions.

I don't know if you're...

Well, you'll be aware of that.

I don't know if you're aware that she was my sister-in-law.

And I was trying to work out why that is.

And it's because you manage somehow to walk the tightrope

between examining yourself, between self-examination and self-obsession.

And the fact that I know so much about, including your own family's medical history,

is a testament to how successfully you've managed to explore your own life and your own past without ever.

And this is a field in which I have some expertise,

without ever coming across as too pleased with yourself. Do you ever worry that you overshare?

Um, by the way, I feel like I've spent half my life waiting to talk to you. I think

we share a lot of the same opinions. I love your books.

And I think we share the same enemies as well.

Quite possibly. We can compare notes. And I will add, well, we get the bromance out of the way

out of the way very early. One of the things I love most about reading your work and your new book, Empire Land,

...