To judge from the number of interviews he gives from the kitchen of his house in Cambridge, Clive James is bent on dying in public. The leukaemia for which he underwent chemotherapy several years ago has returned. He also has emphysema and may not last beyond the year-end, a prospect that seems to have made no difference at all to this ailing 75-year-old’s prolific work-rate (one book out this week, another two in preparation) or to the sense of irony that led to his current poetry collection being titled Sentenced to Life. Wryness is all, James seems to be saying, and the chart on the hospital bed-head be damned.Kirsty Lang began her sympathetic Front Row sit-down (3 April) by playing an assortment of clips from James’ late 1990s TV shows. Some listeners, you imagine, would h