In the closing pages of the last volume, I got married. The ceremony marked a rare outbreak of normality in my life. It was symbolized by my personal appearance. I was clean-shaven and had a hairstyle in reasonably close touch with my head.

After Unreliable Memoirs, Falling Towards England and May Week Was In June comes the fourth instalment in Clive James’s life. Taking us from Fleet Street to Clive James on TV, from Russian department stores to Paris fashion shows – via fatherhood, some killer bees, and a satire starring Anne Robinson as Mrs Thatcher – North Face of Soho is the larger-than-life story of a life lived to the full.

Continue Clive's story with the last of his memoirs The Blaze of Obscurity.