Though Pippa resolutely refuses to talk about where she wants to end up—‘outcome goals’, as she calls them—I put it to her that the ultimate accolade for anyone in a band is to have one of your songs playing as background music in EastEnders. ‘I don’t think so,’ she says dismissively. ‘Not until they upgrade to a more salubrious setting. Have you seen the hideous wallpaper in most of those houses? I don’t want my songs associated with that.’ That’s me told!

Martha Wyers, 31, author. Fiction writer Martha Wyers has more awards and accolades to her name than most people twice her age. She won first prize in a children’s short story competition at the age of 11, and has been bagging prizes ever since. How many in total? I ask her, and she looks embarrassed. ‘I don’t know, maybe thirty?’ she says, blushing. These include the prestigious Kaveney Schmidt Award and the Albert Bennett short story prize. Now she’s branched out into full-length fiction, and her first novel, Ice on the Sun, was published in hardback last year by Picador, and is now out in paperback. Editor Peter Straus describes the book as ‘A stunning debut, the best novel by a young author that I’ve read in a long while.’ ‘I suppose it’s a literary novel, but I hope it’s readable too,’ Martha says. ‘I was gripped by the story while I was writing it, and I want readers to be gripped too.’ She is keen to talk about the book, and admits she became ’comprehensively obsessed’ with it while writing it. It’s the story of 27-year-old Sidonie Kershaw, who falls insanely in love with the enigmatic Adam Sands at an interview for a job they’re both after (a job Adam eventually gets). Sidonie can’t get him out of her head, even though she doesn’t know him from . . . well, Adam! She pursues him relentlessly, ends up frightening and repelling him, and driving herself into an abyss of despair. Sounds a bit depressing, I dare to suggest. ‘The only depressing books are bad ones,’ says Martha firmly. ‘Look at American Psycho—it’s uplifting because it’s art, because it’s so brilliantly written, powerful and memorable. There’s so much pain and horror in the world—emotional, physical, you name it. It’s the writers who don’t tackle these issues that depress me.’