AE on Telly News (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Mick Harper]

The Jura Affair by William Boyd (BBC R4)

My lit crit abilities, forgery nose and AE skills have been brought to the fore with this latest Book at Bedtime. William Boyd is one of Britain's foremost novelists and the book concerns a first edition of 1984 with an Orwell dedication on the title page and worth c. quarter of a million pounds.

The narrator is a would-be author writing 2084, a modern take on the Orwellian dystopia. She's on the tube and a courier accidentally drops the book, which she picks up but by then the courier has disappeared. This was my first objection. The narrator thinks this astonishing coincidence is a coincidence and I thought this a clumsy plot device on Boyd's part. I instantly assumed the book is a fake, and the 'accident' will turn out to be no such thing. Or let's hope not, we're only halfway through the book.

Later it transpires Yale has just purchased for a quarter million a similar 1984, similarly dedicated by Orwell personally. I instantly assume both books are fakes which means an Orwell fakes factory. The first dedicatee is found to have a cemetery headstone in Jura (where 1984 was written) so we know -- but we haven't been told yet -- where the fakes factory are getting their dedicatees from.

The book is quite entertaining but I have to say it is an enriching exercise being ahead of the audience (and, it may be, the author) due to my own training. I do have a small genuine coincidence to report. Aneurin Bevan (q.v.) plays a small part since he was Minister of Health at the time and tried to get some newly available penicillin from America to cure Orwell's tuberculosis. Unavailingly, and Orwell died on Jura in 1950.

[Mick Harper]

Every time I see Digging for Britain in my TV programme guide, my mind reads 'Dogging for Britain'. I must tell Dame Alice this next time I see her. She will be vastly amused.

[Hatty]

[Mick Harper]

Ho ho. Who's a clever girl. (Who used to be a chalet girl in Switzerland, nudge, nudge?) Did those elaborate sanatoria work? I've often wondered. I suppose clear mountain (or island or south coast) air made it easier to breathe but it can't have cured the disease.

[Boreades]

Richard Osman's House of Games, last night.

In the final "Answer Smash" round, as usual, join two things together.

[Mick Harper]

To be drummed out of one's chosen profession for having a quick smooch with one's secretary is something we have all suffered from time to time. But have you noticed? The secretary is never drummed out of hers. It's one law for them and another for us.

[Boreades]

I didn't know you had a secretary.

[Mick Harper]

I used to be one. A temp typist for one of the big agencies, I forget which one. I learned a lot about a great many firms. And about sexism in the workplace.

[Mick Harper]

The Jura Affair (concluded) (Part One)

This came to an end last night in a reasonably exciting way and has been, all in all, a reasonably exciting book. From a professional point of view I was disappointed that Boyd did not explore something which only we here seem to realise.

[Mick Harper]

The Jura Affair (concluded) (Part Two)

There was a massive hole in the plot that was never explained. Or it was a plot contrivance of epic proportions. For the story to unfold the following is required:

1. An Orwell obsessive is sitting on a tube train
2. An Orwell forger happens to be sitting on the seat beside her
3. The OO and the OF get off at the same station
4. The OF accidentally allows a book worth £250,000 to fall out of his rucksack
5. The OO picks it up and hurries to call the OF's attention to his mishap
6. But in that brief interval the OF has disappeared
7. The OO has had ample opportunity to see what the OF looks like but mysteriously identifies Person A she meets on Jura as the OF when it turns out Person B she meets on Jura is the OF.

Now by any measure this is totally preposterous. The only reason the reader might not notice is that it takes place in the first few pages of the book but only become completely revealed several hundred pages later at the end.

But the weird thing is it would only take a bit more ingenuity to line up the elements in a way, not just more believable than a tube train encounter, but far more interesting as well. Somewhere inside the world of Orwell obsessives for instance.

Still, William Boyd makes more money out of his books than I do from mine, by a factor of a million-to-one, so who was right to rely on million-to-one contrivances?

[Mick Harper]

All ten fifteen-minute episodes are available on BBC Sounds here https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m0028jmy
so you can pretend to be doing AE research while listening to a rattling good yarn.

[Mick Harper]

How to conduct an interview
The right way and the wrong way

Newsnight: Welcome to Newsnight, Ms [Lib Dem Health spokesperson].
There is an awkward silence. Interviewee realises she is supposed to thank Newsnight.
Interviewee: I'm happy to be here.
Newsnight: Surprised?
There is an awkward silence. Is she surprised to be on Newsight? Yes, a bit, but it seems fatuous to say so. She decides she is being asked whether she was surprised to hear about the latest NHS reforms.
Interviewee: Very much so.

Al-Jazeera: Welcome to Al-Jazeera, Ms [Lib Dem Health spokesperson]. Were you surprised to hear about the latest NHS reforms?
Interviewee: Very much so.

But then again Al-Jazeera has been in the news interviewing business a lot longer than the BBC.

[Boreades]

Cross-threading this from the Politics thread.

[Mick Harper]

Somebody posted up a comment today which sounds as though he thinks I made the whole thing up anyway

[Boreades]