The Muttonbirds inspired Ian Rankin.

The Muttonbirds inspired Ian Rankin.

We don't know if Scottish crime novelist Ian Rankin has read Misery, Stephen King's book about "number one fans." But it certainly sounds like he qualifies as the numero uno supporter of Auckland-born band the Muttonbirds, led by Don McGlashan.

Rankin's best-selling most recent work, The Falls, is named after a song from the band's last album. And the best-selling author turned up in town this week for the Writers' Festival wearing a Muttonbirds' T-shirt. When they played in Edinburgh last year, Rankin went to buy his ticket and demanded the one in the window display - "Because it's number 0001. I want number one," he told the Herald in an interview, the rest of which appears on E7. "The guy looked at me and said, 'How old are you pal?"'

Not too old to go up after the gig and introduce himself to Don McGlashan. "As you do. Well, as you do as a 14-year-old. I'm not sure he's had many 41-year-olds coming up." And his reward for such long-distance devotion? Well, McGlashan, in a tour diary written in November for TimeOut, described meeting Rankin after that gig: "Scottish thriller writer Ian Rankin collars me to tell me he's named his next book after The Falls, a song from our latest album. He's excited, speedy and wants to tell me the whole plot right there and then. Unable to quite follow his accent ... I mutter thanks and flee to the hotel."

And coming soon from Rankin, Dominion Road, White Valiant, The Heater ...

DOCTOR SAM'S PATIENT CONFIDENTIALLY: You can read more of Sam Neill's tinder-dry words in our story about The Dish. But, of course, Neill is going to be seen - all going well - by a lot of people this year reprising his role of paleontologist Dr Alan Grant in the third Jurassic Park movie, the details of which have been rather hush-hush. So, share something with the folks at home about the next dino-fest ...

"I think its fair to say that people will be eaten. I don't think they can tell me off for letting you into that."

Right. Weird going back for the third film, having missed part two?

"I didn't think I got the character right the first time - which is probably true every time I go to work, as a matter of fact - it's probably quite good to do it a second time. I probably did it better."

What didn't he get right first time round?

"I can't tell you that or it will repeat itself in reviews from now on in."

STAGE FRIGHT: Phew rock'n'roll. Where were those American art-rock hellraisers The Dandy Warhols before playing at the Powerstation on Tuesday night? Recruiting groupies? Throwing televisions out of hotel rooms? Out getting in some mood enhancement for the "gig"?

No, they were at the theatre - the Auckland Theatre Company's production of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. We know because singer-guitarist Courtney Taylor-Taylor gave the play - which is, of course, a "riff" on Hamlet - a plug as "the most brilliant thing I've ever seen." Gee, everyone's a critic huh?