Fierce stuff, eh, Martin. Crikey! I don’t know about you, but when I heard that I thought: well, I’d send them down. Guilty as charged, your honour.
Do you do that thing, when you watch Perry Mason or A Few Good Men or To Kill A Mockingbird – that thing where you change your mind about the verdict depending on who’s speaking? I do. When the prosecutors are doing their thing I’m all for taking the accused away right there and then. No further evidence needed. And then, when the defence gets up, suddenly it’s as if the veil has been lifted from my eyes and I’m finally seeing the truth for the first time. Suddenly the only possible verdict one could deliver has to be ‘Not Guilty’!
Every time. I do it every time. I’d be hopeless on jury service.
So… although it was looking bad right then, although that opening salvo had me wondering if my whole career really was a colossal mistake, it only took the afternoon session and our opening statement to turn it all around for me.
The threats were implied, Martin, that was the clever thing. The suggestions were planted: the newspaper knows more than it has let on already. We laid our strategy out plain and clear. It was all: ‘This newspaper has secured the convictions of murderers, paedophiles, gun runners, drug cheats, benefit cheats, bent MPs, bent cops, war criminals, drug pushers and sexual predators,’ and then it was all: ‘We report the news. We do not fabricate the news,’ and then there was a bit of: ‘What stories we may have run on the man who is charging us with this list of crimes have all been demonstrably and provably true. He may not like it, but if he doesn’t like it he shouldn’t do it,’ and then, best of all, right at the death: ‘We intend to defend ourselves, the honour of the world’s greatest newspaper and indeed the honour of all the world’s journalists, the honour of journalism itself, against the self-seeking, self-serving, self-interested motives of men like this who would seek to muzzle the truth for his own ends.’
Rock and roll! There was actual whooping in the newsroom! Stick that in your sporran and play with it! It’s going to be a fight – and what’s more, it looks like it’s going to be a dirty fight.
And do you know what the moral of the story is going to be, Martin? It’s going to be this, the same as it always is: don’t take on the tabloid press. Don’t take on the tabloid press because, eventually, in the end, you’ll always lose.
Au revoir!
Dan
Letter 31
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Re: 07.31 Premier Westward Railways train from Oxford to London Paddington, September 24. Amount of my day wasted: seven minutes. Fellow sufferers: no regulars (Saturday, innit).
Dear Martin
What’s this? Another delay? That’s two in the same week – you’re getting sloppy again. You’ve fallen into those bad old habits once more. You want to look at that, Martin. You don’t want that to develop into some kind of culture of incompetence at Premier Westward, do you?
Because that, as we’re finding out, is what happens at institutions. They develop ‘cultures’. As the Trial Of The Century™ has told us this week, repeatedly, big institutions develop cultures: of incompetence, or arrogance, or deceit or illegality. (Never positive things. Never a culture of excellence, for example. Or a culture of rigorous investigation.)
It’s all gone a little flat, hasn’t it? After the explosive opening salvos, I mean. There’s been an awful lot of legal jargon and points of order and boring closed sessions between counsel and the judge. There has, to be blunt, been no dirt.
Would you like some dirt, Martin? Something filthy and titillating to wallow in while we wait for events to pick up again? You would! I thought so. How about another little tale from the vault, another little dirty secret that never got to see the light of day. Another reason why the man spearheading the crusade against the Globe’s culture of deceit is about as amoral as they come.
Let’s keep it hypothetical, of course. Let’s not make any black-and-white accusations. But let’s also suppose that a decade ago, just about the time that our libidinous and litigious friend hit the big time, a certain newspaper received a tip concerning his activities in Argentina.
You may remember his adventures in Argentina. They were splashed all over the (quality) papers, featured in BBC documentaries, raised a fortune in donations. You may remember how he had been recording over there (later turned into a documentary, as you may also recall, and responsible for a remarkable resurgence in his popularity) and had been struck by the terrible conditions in which so many children were forced to live.
In the favelas of Buenos Aires, we learned, our sensitive friend found his calling. Those grubby-faced urchins running barefoot through the shanty towns acted upon him in the most profound way. A campaign was formed, awareness was raised, a foundation set up – and, with his famous face earnestly peering out of every promotional bit of bumpf, millions were raised to help drag those kids into something like a better life.
It was a truly wonderful, heart-warming story. And it made the man behind it massive. Global. And you know what else? The whole thing was a sham.
So. Like I say, a certain newspaper received a tip about what was really going on. And what was really going on was this: the whole thing had been set up, planned in advance, the most photogenic urchins selected and kept safe months before he ‘happened to chance upon them’, every heartfelt utterance and exasperated sigh and dewy-eyed expression of regret and despair that we could live in such a cruel and uncaring world carefully scripted and committed to memory. There was a triumvirate of conspirators – a record-company boss with eyes on our boy for a career-resurrecting documentary, a leading charity director with an ends-justifies-the-means mentality and, of course, our friend himself. They had cooked it all up between them. There are emails. One of them even allegedly contains the following: ‘People are bored of Africa. Africa isn’t sexy any more. India’s too dirty and Eastern Europe too ugly. Nobody wants to see any more backwards Romanian orphans – and besides, the music’s shit. Whereas South America… it’s sexy, the samba’s superb, the kids are beautiful, and there’s enough guns and sunshine to keep it all photogenic.’
Cynical, eh? What a cynical so-and-so! And yet, it worked a dream. It showed our man to be both talented and caring. It melted a billion hearts worldwide – and sold almost as many CDs. The documentary shifted more DVDs than could be stocked – both sides of the Atlantic. And, to be fair, it raised a lot of dough for the charities involved.
But that’s not all of it. There are other rumours too. I’m sure you can guess. But I wouldn’t want to go there. Not without proof.
So. Nice chap, eh? No wonder he wants to shut us up.
Anyway! Enough about all this nonsense, Martin. I do keep boring on about work stuff, don’t I? I do keep banging on about newspapers. I’m sure you couldn’t give two figs: I’m sure the intricacies and intimacies of the Premier Westward running schedule and the continuing difficulties with signal boxes in the Taplow area dominate your thoughts, night and day. And quite right too. So they should.
One more thing though, before I go. Do you remember that baby-bonding weekend that sparked such a row last week? The one I either wilfully forgot about or didn’t know about, depending on your point of view? The one I can’t go on? Well, it seems Beth and Sylvie are going anyway. With or without me.
What do I think about that? I guess you’re just going to have to wait until the next delay to find out. I’ve overrun this email enough already. But don’t despair! Something tells me that you probably won’t be holding your breath for too long…
Au revoir!
Dan
Letter 32
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Re: 20.20 Premier Westward Railways train from London Paddington to Oxford, September 28. Amount of my day wasted: eight minutes. Fellow sufferers: Sauron Flesh Harrower.
Dear Martin
What? No, I’m not talking about Sauron Flesh Harrower and the nightly fights for the Dungeons of Azkhabar (or wherever). I’m not even talking about work and the battle for a free press that’s happening right now in the Royal Courts of Justice. I’m talking about the news! The real news! The rebels have stormed the citadels of power – literally. In the dust and the despair and the blitzed-out remains of what was once the capital, through the rubble and the smoke and the abandoned bodies of dead men, the battered remains of the free people’s army of North Africa have broken through the dictator’s last defences.
They’re in, Martin! They’ve taken the Imperial Palace. And the footage… the footage is incredible. It’s just about the worst-quality, most poorly recorded, lowest-production-value recordings I’ve ever seen passed off as any kind of news report. But it’s incredible. Shaky, hand-held, cheap Nokia action; blurry, distorted, out-of-focus satellite-phone coverage; a mess of people running and shouting and firing into the air, sandalled feet and filthy robes, beards and big hats and sudden faces – and a weird soundtrack of part-singing, part-yelling, gunshots and muffled crashes. And back in the studio, grave-faced presenters trying to make head or tail of it, but all agreeing on one thing: it’s the end for the old regime. Unbelievably, incredibly, despite all the odds, freedom looks like it’s won the day.
Except for one thing. There appears to be no sign of the old dictator himself. The main man, the Grand Fromage. Where is he?
We’re counting on them finding him by Saturday. Goebbels has been doing his nut about it, he’s not happy with the situation at all. ‘We need closure!’ he’s been screaming at Harry the Dog. ‘We need them to find him and we need it to happen before we go to press! Make it happen! Get on the phone and make it happen now! I want his head on a pole by Saturday afternoon! What’s wrong with these people? How hard can it be? You’ve spent four months liberating the bleeding country and now you go and lose the man in charge? Idiots! Idiots!’
He’s this close to sending one of us over there to go and do the job properly. ‘Anyone with a camera would do,’ he’s been screaming at the picture desk. ‘I can’t use this crap! Find someone with a camera and get them to hold it still and point it in the vague direction of something interesting!’
He’s not exactly filled with revolutionary fervour then, Martin. Not like us.
Or are you? Hang on: when was the last time you gave me your opinion on anything? When was the last time you wrote back to me, Martin? I need to know where you’re at on all this. I need to know why my trains are so screwed up of course (first and foremost, in fact), but I need to know what you think of all this other stuff that’s going on too. And actually, while we’re here, and seeing as I did ask you a letter or two ago, I also need your worldly wise, avuncular advice re the whole Beth situation.
She’s definitely going on this weekend thing on Friday. She’s set on it, unrepentant about it. She said if I can’t be bothered getting my priorities right, then perhaps it’s best I don’t come after all. But there’s no way I can stop her going. So I said something like, it’s only going to be mums there anyway, to which she replied that Mr Blair was going for a start.
Of course Mr Blair’s going. Mr Blair, with his well-thumbed copy of the Guardian and his vegan coffee blends. Mr Perfect, with his perfect house and perfect child and perfectly balanced viewpoints. How could he not be going?
And so that settles it. If Beth’s going for her weekend, then I’m going to do something nice with one of my friends too. Train Girl mentioned having another drink and I told her Saturday night would be good. Saturday, after we’ve put the paper to bed (with or without the dictator’s head on a stick). And with no wife and child to get me up on Sunday morning, so much the better, right?
Au revoir!
Dan
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Re: 20.20 Premier Westward Railways train from London Paddington to Oxford, September 28.
Dear Dan
Thanks for your letters of September 14, 20, 24 and 28. I am sorry you have had the need to write to me again and I would like to take this opportunity once more to extend my deepest apologies. I would like to point out, however, that only the delay of September 14 was over ten minutes – ten minutes being the marker by which we class a train as being ‘officially’ delayed. But nonetheless, I fully understand how even the shortest lengthening of your journey can prove frustrating.
To address your other points: I have been following the news from North Africa with great interest, though I must confess the court case which your paper is defending has not captured my imagination to quite the same extent. Nevertheless it is fascinating to hear your stories of the ‘crooner’ in question. Quite the dark horse, as they say!
I am also flattered you consider my advice ‘avuncular’! For what it’s worth I can offer little else other than to repeat myself. The first years after having a baby are very difficult, but you must try to allow for your wife’s hormonal imbalances and mood swings. Things will get better!
All the very best
Martin
Letter 33
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Re: 07.31 Premier Westward Railways train from Oxford to London Paddington, September 29. Amount of my day wasted: ten minutes. Fellow sufferers: Lego Head, Guilty New Mum, Train Girl, Universal Grandpa.
Oh, Martin. This is no good. I write to you last night, and now I’m having to write again this morning. The very next day. The very next train. It was delayed coming into Oxford, it dawdled a fair while on the platform at Oxford, it was overdue leaving Oxford. Is it any wonder it got into London ten minutes late?
Which apparently barely counts as a delay at all! Are you serious? Are you redefining the English language? Are you redefining the very concept of time itself? Tell you what: let’s just stick with my definition of delayed. Let’s just say, for argument’s sake, that ‘delayed’ means ‘didn’t arrive on time’.
So. My train to work this morning was delayed – whichever way you choose to define it. And I really could have done with arriving on time today, too. Given what happened last night and all. Given I was up all night, watching it happen live on the news channels, Sylvie balanced on my lap, chubby little cheeks lit blue by the light of the three a.m. telly, alternately gurgling, screaming and sleeping. (That’s Sylvie gurgling, screaming and sleeping, not me.) Given it’s going to mean a big day at work today. (Even for us showbiz types. It’ll be all hands on deck, even for those of us who wallow in the shallow end.)
But it was mental stuff, all right. It was worth staying up for. The pursuit, the chase, the capture. The execution. When I tuned in, reports were filtering through of something afoot in the Imperial Palace and by the time they’d got their man on the ground in amongst the action, a full-scale hunt was in progress. Hundreds of men legging it through corridors and bursting into rooms, robes and sandals and bare feet and everyone clutching some kind of weapon. Battered automatic guns, machetes, kitchen knives, sticks, bricks, bottles… anything that could do a bit of damage. Rushing from one room to another with deadly intent and our lone western reporter right in the thick of it.
Word had got out that the old dictator was still around. He hadn’t scarpered too far after all. He didn’t even make it off the premises. In one of the thousand nooks and crannies and secret places of his old palace, the most hated man in the world was holed up. Elvis had not left the building. And now everyone who could find something to hurt him with was ripping the place apart trying to find him.
Do you know what it reminded me of? Do you remember back when English football hooligans used to tear up foreign cities? Like a ragged, shambolic, sunburned militia, running through the streets hurling whatever they could find at
whatever they could reach, seemingly completely chaotic yet all oddly guided by the same instinct, the same unarticulated plan: left here, right there, up against the Carabinieri there, and more often than not with a breathless, half-scared, half-exhilarated reporter amongst them, ducking the debris and the beer spray. Well, it reminded me of that, in a strange way. There was no strategy to the chase – but you just knew that with every ransacked room and smashed-up corridor they were getting closer.
And then they found it. The secret door. An actual, real-life, secret door! Those things really exist! Not only that, but the reporter, the man with the only live camera feed back to the west, was right there with them when they uncovered it. And then… and then it got quicker. Things sped up – and things turned brutal.
Door smashed in, stairs charged, camera almost dropped in the crush, a room uncovered, a moment’s pause as they took it in – and then howls of protest, cries of anguish, screams of absolute rage. The old dictator’s old torture chamber. His personal torture chamber, for his personal use. Manacles and shackles and electrical cable. Bloodied tables and bins full of… stuff. Tool kits. Meat hooks. Bodies and bits of bodies. Horror.
And, finally, the money shot. A shaky zoom towards one of the torsos still hanging on a wall – and there, what’s that, behind it, a glimpse of beard, two terrified eyes and a mop of matted black hair. Cowering behind a mutilated corpse was the man this whole thing was about. You couldn’t make it up, Martin. Hollywood couldn’t do it justice.
Martin Harbottle's Appreciation of Time Page 12