Kathy Sheridan tries to cover the world in 20 short minutes with former US president Bill Clinton
You have 20 minutes with the most recent Leader of the Free World. Depressingly, the Australian Journalist of the Year (2003) - who is scheduled to follow you in the series of interviews Bill Clinton is giving in London to launch his autobiography, My Life - has 40 questions carefully typed out, in coherent order, mostly about Iraq. The upside is that he has two chances of getting beyond question four, and he knows it.
The less ambitious of us ponder whether it could ever be civilised behaviour to pole-vault from WMDs to Monica Lewinsky in such a tiny time span.
Inside the pretty, gilded room in the grandest suite of the Ritz Hotel, a biography of Tony Blair - The Price of Leadership - lies alone on a side table. A sheaf of press cuttings - typically, "Bill Clinton has London eating from the palm of his hand" - are on the floor. An aide offers a drink before placing his own tape recorder on the table, meaningfully.
Then Bill Clinton arrives. He looks like a man who has imploded. "Well, he did have his party last night...," reasons an entourage member. It was either one hell of a party or the man "who grew up in a talking culture" - as he describes both himself and vice-presidential candidate, John Edwards - is finally exhausted. Maybe the potential for another joust about The Women is wrecking his head.
So the bit about The Women is left till the end. Just in case.
So, what did Bill Clinton say to Gerry Adams during that mystery 5 a.m. call - referred to in the book - that George Mitchell insisted was the key to the Good Friday agreement?
"I'd like to inject some grand drama here and say that I pulled him over the line but I don't really think that that's what happened.
"What Gerry really wanted to know was that if he did this and basically and finally gave up the idea of republican unity in the short run for the long-term prospect of democracy and shared decision-making, shared economic benefits and the promise that if the pro-republicans became the majority in Northern Ireland, they would be able to vote for that too - when, if that happened in the future, that the United States would stay with it and try to protect the integrity of the agreement.
"And [what I said was] that it was a moment that should not be lost, that it would be unlikely to recur again."
Mr Clinton knew all about the trouble on the Twelfth. "I suppose it was predictable that there would be a whole series of what economists call 'buyers' remorse' - that means, 'Oh my God, I agreed with this deal but I don't like this or that' - so I see a lot of this as buyers' remorse."
But he also sees the accord as "the best political agreement of my lifetime", while noting the urgent need for "a functioning Northern Ireland government ... There's all this business about decommissioning - which I always favoured more rather than less - but there is enough to know that we don't need to be deconstructing the government because it's obvious that we're not going back to terror."
Irish antipathy towards the Bush visit held no surprises for him. "Quite apart from Iraq, the Irish were bound to take a different view of this administration's more unilateral approach to foreign policy," he says, reeling off various US solo runs on treaties. "Ever since the UN was created, there has been some Irish soldier somewhere in the world on the UN watch, so it would be hard to find a more polar opposite approach to the problems of the world."
But there will be no "permanent rift" between the two countries, he says, "not only because of our common heritage and our feelings for the Irish peace process, but just because it doesn't make any sense. No country is going to be big enough to pursue a unilateral approach."
Is his book a vehicle for Hillary's 2008 presidential run? "If that's what it is," he laughs, "our timing is poor. She would be very good. I hope some day she has a chance to do that because she's so talented."
And, um, talking of women - Monica Lewinsky for once - has said she was "debased" by him in his attempt to stop the impeachment and since. Suddenly, he's on full alert, his head cocked like a bird's, and unstoppable.
"I don't think that's right. I think I was very respectful of her in this book and I certainly never said anything bad about her in the impeachment. The others were lying and I said they were lying, and they did it for money and profit... I could have been... I didn't say too much about Gennifer Flowers in this book. I just said that she didn't tell the truth when she described our relationship. And a female Republican judge who didn't like me said that there was no basis in fact or law for the charges made by Paula Jones. For me to repeat that is no disparagement of them. They're still trying to jump up and down on me to get - you know - exposure, money or whatever's going on there. But I don't agree that I was disrespectful to Monica Lewinsky."
In any event, he believes that the comments of the thousands in the book-signing queues speak for themselves, and that there is a "disconnect between the media coverage and what ordinary people say when they buy the book. Most people get that politicians make decisions that affect their lives, that being a president is a choosing job, and the choices you make affect other people's lives, and the people who try to obscure that do it for other reasons..."
And finally. He does not own a house in the K Club. No. He says it twice, explaining rather wearily that, you know, he owed $10 million when he left office and had to get a house for Hillary in Washington and another for them in New York so, really, a house in the K Club - well, you must be joking.
After Ronald Reagan's magnificently staged funeral, has he thought of his own (former presidents are required to fill a very large book of plans on the subject)? "The Reagan funeral was consistent not only with his sense of flair and drama but also with the way the Republicans have tried to pour the image of their party through his sunny personality," he says, before brightening up. "But I liked Reagan personally so I didn't really mind."
His own tomb will be in the presidential library in Arkansas. How does he envisage his epitaph? "That I was given great love and great opportunities and left the world better than I found it," he says rather despondently.
No doubt he will come up with something more elegant when he recovers his brio.