Last night (Thursday, October 15th), David Gilmour and Polly Samson participated in a fascinating public discussion, an evening part of a wider initiative called 5x15 which has involved a wide range of personalities talking about their own spheres of experience.

David and Polly's event was held at London's ornate Porchester Hall, scene of the launch event for Pink Floyd's The Endless River. The event had the pair discussing their creative relationship, as well as music, inspiration and their artistic processes, with author Andrew O'Hagan asking the majority of questions (and facilitating a range of interesting questions from the audience).

As the introduction acknowledged, the roots of last night's chat were in June's Borris House Festival of Writing and Ideas appearance, which covered similar ground and gave the lucky few a sneak preview of a couple of tracks from the Rattle That Lock album. During the London event, the discussion covered similar ground but expanded on certain areas - and early (or demo) versions of a number of David's more recent works were aired courtesy of his iPhone. He also had an acoustic guitar to his side which was called upon at various points during the evening.

Thus, we got to hear an early Smile (which originally - amongst David's children at least - was known as Donkey Poo), In Any Tongue (which Polly pointed out, had David almost scatting the words "Haagen Dazs" - the ice cream company - through the early, rough version). There was also an early version of Girl With The Yellow Dress played back, which featured a lot less instrumentation. O'Hagan concentrated on the genesis of these and other recent works, which made for a fascinating insight into the creative process, particularly related to A Boat Lies Waiting, of which Polly related the difficulty in resolving the subject matter and lyric for.

Some of the explanations were familiar to those who have been reading, watching, or listening to, the recent range of interviews, such as Polly coming up with the lyrics to Rattle That Lock while studying Milton's Paradise Lost & researching The Kindness. There were a number of other areas that were less trodden roads, including wider discussions of music (including David's opinion of why, or more accurately who was responsible for, The Beatles breaking up). However, as David noted at one point, "conflict has led to a lot of great music".

One added bonus last night for many was the unexpected signing session which followed the event, with David and Polly happily autographing various items for the audience.

At present, there are no announced plans for any further discussion sessions.