There are moments when speaking to Jeffrey Archer that I wonder who is interviewing whom. We are 40 minutes in and the best-selling novelist decides to tell me about myself.
'You are a boring middle-class man,' he begins. 'You were probably educated at Oxford or Cambridge, probably went to an English public school and you married a boring middle-class woman. You are a boring thing, you are an object. I am not going to get anything out of you.'
The speech is mildly alarming to say the least - I merely asked how Archer's much-publicised spell in prison had influenced his writing. I'm half considering packing my bags when Archer leans in and says, sotto voce.
'In prison, I never met any boring middle-class people. These people were murderers, these people were on drugs, these people had five wives and 18 children. What prison gave me, aged 61, was a thousand new characters I would never have met and a world I never would have touched.' Archer sits back. 'I just sat there absolutely mind-boggled.'
Six years later, it is hard to imagine Archer sitting anywhere other than his sumptuous London penthouse. It is a venue specifically designed to impress. Having negotiated a doorman (who reminds me I am to meet 'Lord Archer') and then a butler, I finally see the lord himself, framed by the most spectacular view of the Thames and the houses of parliament.
It is a dramatic setting for a dramatic individual - one of the most colourful, divisive and intriguing personalities in British cultural life. Combative and pompous one moment, Archer is amusing and charming the next: apart from being boring, I am a snob, a layabout and a nag, but I think it's in jest.
One thing, however, is certain. Whether he's playing the fool or the lord, Jeffrey Archer is compelling company and a consummate performer. Little wonder he lists the theatre among his first loves. 'I go twice a week - every week,' he tells me more than once. 'I'll repeat that because you look surprised.'