Hardly surprising: Chris Patten looks tired, the eyes a bit puffier than usual. The morning after publication, he says, "feels a bit like a hangover".
But he shakes off the fatigue the minute I remind him of David Trimble's critique of his "shoddy piece of work". According to the Ulster Unionist leader, Mr Patten simply hadn't grasped the point of the Belfast Agreement, namely that, with Northern Ireland's constitutional position settled, emblems and titles shouldn't have been thought contentious.
Chris Patten says he listens carefully to what Mr Trimble says about the agreement because obviously "he was one of the creators of it". But he declares himself "surprised by his interpretation of it" and fancies a lot of nationalists will be as well.
"It seemed to me what was settled in the agreement was that the constitutional position should be determined democratically," he says. "But in return for making that manifest, I'd understood nationalists and republicans were offered two things. First, parity of esteem and recognition that there are two traditions in Northern Ireland, and that one shouldn't be seen (whether it is a justified observation or not) to be lording it over the other.
"And secondly, specific institutions of government were created to reflect that, while nationalists and republicans under the agreement are obliged to demonstrate their commitment to the democratic process. They're not obliged to owe their primary loyalty to the institutions of the State."
Looking quite incredulous, he declares: "I don't understand what the agreement is about if it isn't about that." And if that's the case, then he doesn't understand either "the determination to keep the police service in a position where it's identified with the institutions of the state".
If, on the other hand, it didn't mean all that, then, Mr Patten ventures, "some of our terms of reference make no sense at all". And he goes on to explicitly rebuke Mr Trimble. "I don't say this provocatively but it really does seem to me that we were given a very clear agenda and I'm surprised that those who gave us that agenda didn't understand what the consequences would be."
The UUP had warned Mr Patten against scrapping the RUC's title. But had they given him to understand that disregarding their view could see his report rejected wholesale?
The man who saw the Union flag brought down over Hong Kong describes the political submissions he received as hardly surprising. Sinn Fein's was posited on the assumption that only disbandment was acceptable. The SDLP argument was for "breaking up" the police service. The views of the DUP and "the various gradations of McCartneyism were based on the assumption - which had a certain logic to it - that we were only doing the devil's work". And the UUP, he confirms, said "no change in symbols", before adding: "So make of that what you will."
Presumably he means a greater focus on symbols than anything else?
Mr Patten confides: "I have had a leading unionist say to me: `You may have got a lot of the substance right but if you've got the symbols wrong, you've blown it'." And without any change in tone, he continues: "And I think that is an argument which a lot of people would think tested rationality close to destruction."
Does he think David Trimble quite grasps the linkage between Patten and devolution? "I hope so," comes the reply. "This is one thing I feel very strongly about in general, and in relation to Northern Ireland in particular. My experience in government, not only as a minister here, but as a minister in a centralising government in Westminster, led me to feel that if you take away people's responsibilities, you can't be surprised if they behave irresponsibly."
Reflecting that personal belief, the Patten report recommends significant police powers should be devolved as soon as possible once the executive and Assembly are functioning.
And so its author hopes that the First Minister-designate understands the importance of what has been proposed: "It does after all reflect a long-time unionist request . . . I hope not one that unionism today shrinks from."
Many people in Northern Ireland and beyond fear that there is a moral vacuum at the heart of the peace process. Does Chris Patten understand that?
"Yes, I do, because as in other cases where you're trying to bring together a divided society you fetch up being obliged to make all sorts of compromises, which cut across values that people hold dear. And I suppose it is the beginning of wisdom in Northern Ireland to recognise that while there are absolute values, there are also relativist views on them."
He goes on: "It was borne in on me more strongly than anything else when we did those public meetings that there are two stories in Northern Ireland, two sets of experiences. And, all right, they're to a degree propagandised, mythologised, but a lot of what's said and felt and suffered is genuine and credible."
This, says Mr Patten, has a direct bearing on what he has to say about policing: "I heard one unionist politician talking about delivering housing estates and the streets to paramilitaries, to baseball-bat justice. What the hell do they think the situation is today in too much of Northern Ireland? Because we've in effect tied one hand of the police behind their backs by tying them to the hardcore political argument . . ."
But hang on. There is another hard-core argument, that the IRA will never permit a police force, deriving its authority from the British state, to gain acceptance in their areas. That, he counters, is the challenge, "that's where nationalists and republicans have to be put on the spot".
Mr Patten is equally withering about his critics in the Daily Telegraph. Referring to what he describes as "a sort of barmy smack-of-crop-against-leather-boot" editorial in the paper yesterday, he demands: "What do they know about what's happening in those estates?" Community policing, he asserts, "is about winning the real war that people experience when they're having to put their hand in their pocket to pay off a paramilitary". Far from failing "to understand the nature of the war" in Northern Ireland, he asserts, "community policing, a partnership between the people and attested police officers, is the real name of the game".
Grand vision. But is it believable that Sinn Fein could be sitting on a new police board in the short term at least, given the scale of recent and ongoing IRA activity? To this, Chris Patten's answer is concise, and almost certainly the only one which all sides will readily believe: "I pray for Senator Mitchell."
He proves equally nimble when asked if he came to the view that the RUC was institutionally sectarian. The Patten commission was not in the position of the MacPherson inquiry into the Stephen Lawrence case, he explains, in that it wasn't asked to pronounce on a case and its implications. And he moves swiftly on: "We read with enthusiasm the forward-looking language of the agreement and decided to try to operate in the same way."
Finally, on the question of pain: there was much talk on Thursday of the pain involved for members of the RUC, their families, friends and supporters. Where in all this is the pain for Sinn Fein and the IRA?
The former Tory chairman thinks that, if only some unionists read a little more history, "then they'd know what the pain is. I hope this will happen, but I don't think anybody should underestimate the difficulty for republican leaders in urging young men and women with republican backgrounds to join the police service in Northern Ireland. If you don't understand that's a challenge to republicans then you don't understand much about the history of this island."