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Ah, again with the weird raggedy boys, I thought to myself as the day's interviewee sat down in the chair opposite me. At least this one was in a suit jacket, sky blue, albeit an old-looking and old-smelling one; the fragrance of stale 70s wardrobe vineer wafted across the table when he straightened it. Beneath that, a grey tee with three buttons at the collar, which kind of detracted from the effort the suit was making, but it didn't particularly matter as neither of them matched the man wearing them.

The man in question, for context, was an otter. White of fur, with tired-looking emerald eyes, and a mess of long orange hair, pushed back from a widow's peak by a set of motorcycle goggles that hooked below his small button ears for stability. At the peak of his chin sat a matching beard that complimented the bushy ginger eyebrows that he honestly didn't look old enough for.

Right. Time to talk to another weirdo, send it off to the editor, and get another paycheck. I could have sworn I took this job to play music and deliver news and important broadcasts. At least this vagrant had a kind of relevant story, I remembered covering it in a newsread or two a while back, when it was happening. Fuck, he's expecting a greeting, say something you twat.

"Ah- sorry, spaced out for a moment there. Terry Vallance, welcome to the studio. I trust you got here okay?"

"Aye, jist fine, thanks. No yaesed tae the traffic in the city again yet, but A managed."

Oh for fuck's sake, he's Scottish, and his accent is ridiculously thick. I should have guessed by the ginger hair, honestly. This...this will be an interview for sure.

"Good good. Might as well start, eh? Don't wanna keep you for too long," I joked, really hoping he was oblivious to the double meaning.

"Aye," was his reply. And thus, with a nod, a short and silent countdown, and a click of the record button on my faithful MD player, the interview began.

"Good afternoon," it was 11am as we recorded, "and welcome to BackTalk, the radio segment where we're not just making history, but getting its opinion. I'm Terry Vallance, here today with, well, someone from our own time, actually. Please, introduce yourself."

"Aye," he straightened up in his seat, at least he made sure he was close enough to the microphone. Not exactly his fault considering he'd definitely never seen a mic before, but the cave fox from the last segment had been a nightmare in post-production, his audio was all over the place. Just another reason that this segment was such rubbish, no wonder it didn't last that long. "Ivor Glenfinnan. Pleasure tae be here in the fine aul' city, no somewhaur A've been fer a while, if ye would believe," he chuckled, scratching his ear.

"Pleasure to have you," I once again lied, getting a waft of eau de shoppe charité as his arm moved. "And you're on this segment for...well, you really shouldn't be, but the producers asked me to cover it, so you're here to speak from around four years ago, is that right? The Grand Blue cruise ship incident, I remember covering it. You've been through quite a lot since, I gather."

"Ahah... aye, 'deed," he chuckled nervously at the mention of the ship's name, "that's a name a havnae heard fer a while."

"I can imagine, yeah. They only ever sent out one lifeboat before the bomb scare was diffused, I believe you were in it, right?" He nodded in agreement, looking a little uncomfortable, "they made a big fuss about it on the news, although you won't have seen. May I ask what that was like?"

"Aye, but if A may, A'd like tae keep it brief. It wus...eh...not exactly a wonderful moment in time, shall we say." There was a twinge of stifle in his voice as I could tell he was flipping through his memory files, looking for the right story.

"It wus jist a regular night. A wus oan the ship wi m'faether, jist oan a wee holiday. Fair sure we were in the lounge area when a tannoy went aff wi' somethin' aboot a bomb. Next a ken, A'm bein' pulled tae a lifeboat by m'faether. We're bundled in and let go apparently jist afore the threat wus ca'ed aff, but we didnae ken at the time, A only found that oot aboot nine month ago"

"Yeah, indeed. How'd you feel at that time?"

"Terrified, a'course. Stuck in a wee wooden boat as it floated awa fae the ship intae bad weather? How else wus A meant tae feel aboot it?"

"Eh..." maybe that was a bit of a stupid question, to be fair, but the producers had written it down on the paper to ask how he felt, so here I was doing just that. "Nevermind, sorry. What happened next?"

This time, his face dropped completely.

"A'm no detailin' it."

Y'know what, considering I later found out he was the only one who even made it to shore, it's probably best he didn't describe it on air; but at the time it was significantly frustrating.

"O...kay, my bad. I'm told you landed on an island eventually?"

"A did, aye."

"And you were there for...three years?"

"Aye."

"How was that?" I was actually a little interested in this bit, I'd read stories of people doing stuff like this, I'd seen the film you're thinking of, but I didn't really register until this point that, yeah, the charity shop otter in front of me had actually done that for real. What I didn't expect was to be countered with another question:

"Ye want tae ken ma actual answer?"

"I mean...if you want to tell the listeners at home, yeah."

"A didnae actually mind it aw that much."

Huh. Definitely not what I expected, but hey, it would sure make for a semi-interesting listen, at least.

"Why is that, then? That's an unexpected answer," I probed, hoping he'd be truthful.

"Well," he began, "it wus peaceful, mostly. Lonely at first, but efter a while, aye, it wus peaceful."

"You didn't struggle to survive at all?"

"Ach, 'course A did. It was caul' at night, even after A'd built a shelter, an' even me wi' ma dodgy relationship wi' food struggled wi' the longer starvations, but," he seemed to digress as he spoke, "it was also ridiculously liberating. Fer example, yince yer rid ae yer claes fer a few weeks, ye start tae no miss them. A wus starkers except fer the goggles wi'in the first coupl'ae month and it wus honestly quite nice."

"That makes sense, yeah," I agreed, my mind once again yanked back to the fragrance of stale suit that had now filled the booth, but I wasn't able to crack a joke about it, as he kept talking.

"And as A say, me an' food have aw-ways had a wee bit o' a rocky relationship tae say the least, and it might be a wee bit messy, but it wus at least nice no havin' folk force a carrot doon ma throat every evenin'. Odd thing tae latch ontae, but A actually felt quite confident wi' ma body efter a while, an' thankfully it's stayed relatively consistent since returnin'," he chuckled, but this was starting to get a little weird and intimate, so I decided to cut him off there.

"Ahah, yeah, that's...that's lovely," I winced as I put up a subtle hand to quieten him, which just seemed to confuse the guy more than anger him. Time to change topics, swiftly if possible. "Speaking of, returns. You got back in the middle of the pandemic, that must've been...interesting. How have you coped with that so far? What have been the biggest challenges?"

He paused for a moment, thinking. "Well, thankfully I managed tae git back online fairly sharpish an' contact an aul' friend, who's let me stay wi' him. There's three o' us in a wee yin-room thing in a coun'ry toon, it's no exactly ideal, but A wus lucky tae hae a friend like that," he closed his eyes with a little bit of a smile - I'm sure his friends were very nice.

"In terms o' the pandemic, well... thankfully A seem tae have missed the bulk ae it, but the worst thing aboot it fer myself was rememberin' the masks an' the hand gel, A bloody hate the slimy stuff. If A didnae have Oscar an' Marius tae remind me, A wouldnae wear claes oot the hoose when A leave, lae alain a face mask."

I don't...know what half of these words mean...not that I want to, I don't need to imagine this guy naked in more detail, I caught that much. Oh thank god the clock is close to finished, we can wrap up this nonsense.

"O...kay, I guess that checks out, but hey, I think we're out of time."

"Ach, awright. Thanks fer havin' me, s'pose, Terry."

"Pleasure. This has been Terry Vallance, here with Ivor Glenfinnan on BackTalk, and you're listening to Connect Radio. Now to the news."

There was an awkward silence as I clicked the stop button, like neither of us were sure what to say. Both of our composures dropped, as he let out a sigh, and I desperately tried to clear my mind of the image of him with no clothes on.

"So...thanks for coming in, Ivor."

"Pleasure. Dae A-"

"Yeah, you can go now, there's a staff member waiting to escort you out."

"Right. Ta. See ye."

"See you."

I watched as he stood to leave, and my gaze followed him around the outside of the booth to make sure he went the right way and left earshot the radius, before pressing the mic button to talk to the producers.

"What the fuck was that? Twice in a row now you guys have made my guests relive trauma and it's not fun to listen to, especially in that godawful accent. Can I get some normal fucking subjects please? I swear to god if my next interviewee is one of his roommates I'm going to lynch one of you, this segment is entirely bollocks." There was a nervous shrug from the assistant behind the glass, as I let out a sigh.

"Fuck this, I'm going home, mail the disc to the editors."