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THE SATURDAY INTERVIEW - JOHN BANVILLE:‘THERE ARE no original questions,” says John Banville in a weary tone as he sips a dry white wine in a Dublin hotel. “The only way you can do an interview is to have a conversation. Otherwise, there’s no point in doing it.”

 So begins a conversation about interviews, Banville recalling the only time he’s ever been on the other side of the dictaphone, when he interviewed Salman Rushdie over the course of a full day the two writers spent together. “Then I had to transcribe it. I hated him, I hated me, I hated tape-recorders. I was sickened!”