What a Carve Up!

by Jonathan Coe

  As for that decision, it was arrived at soon enough. Earlier in the week I had received a bank statement, and this morning I had opened it to discover, not very much to my surprise, that I was heavily overdrawn. In which case, something would have to be done about the pile of manuscript now lying on my desk. With luck – perhaps with the aid of a miracle – there might just be money to be raised on it: but I would have to read it through as quickly as possible, so that I could decide how to approach the relevant publishers.

  I started on this task as soon as I got back to the flat, and had managed to read about seventy pages when Fiona called by in the early evening. She brought two large paper carrier bags, one of which had foliage spilling over the top.

  ‘Gosh,’ she said. ‘You look different.’

  (I remember these rather absurd exclamations of hers, now. ‘Gosh’ was one; ‘Crikey’, another.)

  ‘Do I?’ I said.

  ‘I caught you on a bad night, didn’t I? Last evening, I mean.’

  ‘Maybe. I’m feeling more … with it, tonight.’

  She put the carrier bags down on the floor, saying: ‘I brought these round right away. They need re-potting. If I can leave them here, I’ll just go and freshen up and things, and then I’ll come and give you a hand.’

  When she had gone I took a peek inside the bags. There were plants in one and a couple of fair-sized earthenware pots and saucers in the other, along with some bits of shopping, and a newspaper. It was a long time since I had looked at this particular tabloid, but remembering that today was a Friday I took it out of the bag and thumbed rapidly to a page near the middle. When I found what I was looking for I smiled a private smile, and started to read through it: without much interest at first, but then, after a few lines, I frowned and something chimed within my memory. I went into my spare bedroom, the one I used as a study (the one I never went into), and came back with a large box file full of newspaper clippings. I was looking through these when Fiona returned.

  She took her bags through into the kitchen and set about repotting the plants. I could hear the noise of things being moved about and taps being turned on and off. At one point she said: ‘I must say your kitchen’s awfully clean.’

  ‘I’ll come and help in a minute,’ I said. ‘I really appreciate this, you know. I must reimburse you.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘Ha!’

  I had found the cutting, which I pulled out of the box with this small cry of triumph. It was a vindication of my powers of recall, apart from anything else. I laid out today’s paper on the dining table, opened at the appropriate page, placed the cutting next to it and read both items again carefully. My frown deepened. When Fiona came in carrying one of the plants, she said: ‘I wouldn’t mind a drink.’

  ‘Sorry. Of course. Only I was just looking at this column. What do you make of it?’

  When she saw that I was looking at her newspaper, Fiona became defensive: ‘I didn’t buy that, you know. I found it on the tube.’ She glanced at the identical pictures of Hilary Winshaw which headed each page, and grimaced. ‘That dreadful woman. I hope you’re not going to tell me you’re a fan.’

  ‘Not at all. But I do have a professional interest. Read them while I get you something, and let me know what you think.’

  The column had been running for more than six years now and still bore the title PLAIN COMMON SENSE. The photograph at the top hadn’t changed, either. It was here, every Friday, that the great television mogul and media personality could be found airing her views on any topic which happened to seize her wandering fancy, holding forth with equal conviction on issues ranging from the welfare state and the international situation to the length of hemline sported by members of the royal family on recent social outings. Countless thousands of readers seemed to have been charmed, over the years, by her endearing habit of professing almost total ignorance of any subject which she chose to discuss – her speciality in this regard being a willingness to put forward the most strident opinions relating to controversial books and films while cheerfully admitting that she had been unable to find the time to read or see them. Another winning feature was her way of making the reader feel generously included within her circle of intimates, by being prepared to write at extraordinary length about the minutiae of her domestic arrangements, in tones which would rise to a pitch of righteous indignation whenever she described the vagaries of the successive builders, plumbers and decorators who seemed to be in permanent attendance at her enormous Chelsea home. It’s an interesting but little known fact that for pouring out this torrent of nonsense, Ms Winshaw was paid a yearly fee equivalent to six times the salary of a qualified school-teacher and eight times that of a staff nurse in the National Health Service. I’ve got proof of that, as well.

  The two items which I’d chosen for comparison found Hilary in a political frame of mind. Although they were separated by roughly four years, I present them here as Fiona and I read them that day: side by side.

  A NEWSLETTER reaches my desk today from a group who call themselves the Supporters of Democracy in Iraq – or SODI for short.

  They claim that President Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator who maintains his power through torture and intimidation.

  Well, I’ve got some words of advice for this silly bunch of SODIs: check your facts!

  It’s not often that a television programme can make me feel physically sick, but last night was an exception.

  Can there be anyone in the country whose stomach did not turn over, as we watched Saddam Hussein on the Nine O’clock News, parading the so-called ‘hostages’ he is wickedly proposing to use as a human shield?

  Who is responsible for the social welfare programmes which have brought such massive improvements in housing, education and medical services throughout Iraq?

  Who has recently given the Iraqis pension rights and a minimum wage?

  This was one image that will stay with me for the rest of my life: the spectacle of a defenceless and clearly terrified child being mauled and pawed by one of the most vicious and ruthless dictators to hold power anywhere in the world today.

  Who has installed new and more efficient irrigation and drainage systems, made generous loans to local farmers, and promised ‘health for all’ by the year 2000?

  If any good at all can come from such a revolting display, it will be to make the so-called ‘peace’ lobby come to their senses and realize that we can’t just sit back and allow this Mad Dog of the Middle East to get away scot-free with his terrible crimes.

  Who has no less a figure than President Reagan ordered to be removed from the list of political leaders accused of supporting terrorism?

  And who else, out of all the Middle Eastern leaders, has put his moolah where his mouth is and called on so many British builders and industrialists to help with the rebuilding of his country?

  It’s not just the invasion of Kuwait I’m talking about. The whole eleven-year presidency of Saddam Hussein is one long, sickening history of torture, brutality, intimidation and murder. Anyone who doesn’t believe me should take a look at some of the information leaflets published by SODI (Supporters of Democracy in Iraq).

  That’s right – it’s ‘brutal’, ‘torturing’ Saddam Hussein.

  Come off it, SODI! It’s those barking Ayatollahs you should be complaining about. Life in Iraq may not be perfect, but it’s better now than it has been for a long, long time.

  So lay off Saddam. I say he’s a man we can do business with.

  There can be no doubt about it: the time for moral fudging is over; the time for action is here.

  Let us pray that President Bush and Mrs Thatcher understand that. And let us pray, too, that the brave, plucky little boy we saw on our television screens last night will live to forget his meeting with the evil Butcher of Baghdad.

  Fiona finished reading and looked at me for a few seconds. ‘I’m not sure that I understand,’ she said.

  Hilary

  In the summer
of 1969, shortly before they went up to Oxford together, Hugo Beamish invited his best friend Roddy Winshaw to stay with his family for a few weeks. They lived in a huge, cluttered, slightly dirty house in North West London. Roddy’s sister Hilary was invited too. She was fifteen.

  Hilary found the whole thing excruciatingly tedious. It was perhaps marginally better than spending the summer in Tuscany with her parents (again!), but Hugo’s mother and father turned out to be almost as dull – she was a writer, he worked at the BBC – while his sister, Alicia, was nothing but a crashing bore with buck teeth and terrible spots.

  Alan Beamish was a kindly man who noticed quickly enough that Hilary wasn’t enjoying herself. One night as they all sat around the dinner table, with Roddy and Hugo loudly discussing their respective career options, he watched her pushing a mound of tepid pasta around her plate and asked a sudden question:

  ‘And what do you see yourself doing in ten years’ time, I wonder?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Hilary hadn’t given this matter much thought, taking it for granted (rightly, of course) that something glamorous and well-paid would sooner or later fall into her lap. Besides, she hated the idea of sharing her aspirations with these people. ‘I thought I might go into television,’ she improvised, lazily.

  ‘Well you know of course that Alan is a producer,’ said Mrs Beamish.

  Hilary didn’t know this. She had got him down as a company accountant or at best some sort of engineer. Even so, she was not in the least impressed: but from that moment on, Alan, for his part, chose to take Hilary under his wing.

  ‘Do you know the secret of success in the television business?’ he asked her, late one afternoon. ‘It’s very simple. You have to watch it, that’s all. You have to watch it all the time.’

  Hilary nodded. She never watched television. She knew she was too good for it.

  ‘Now I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,’ said Alan.

  What they were going to do, it transpired – much to Hilary’s horror – was to sit down in front of the television and take in an entire evening’s viewing, with Alan talking her through every programme, explaining how it was made, how much it cost, why it had been scheduled at a certain time, and where its target audience lay.

  ‘Scheduling is everything,’ he said. ‘A programme stands or falls by its scheduling. Understand that, and you’ll already have a march on all the other bright young graduates you’ll be competing with.’

  They started off with the news on BBCI at ten to six, followed by a magazine programme called Town and Around. Then they switched channels to ITV and watched The Saint, with Roger Moore.

  ‘This is the kind of show the independent companies do best,’ said Alan. ‘Very sellable abroad: even to America. High production values, lots of location work. Snappy direction, too. It’s all a bit shallow, for my liking, but I wouldn’t knock it.’

  Hilary yawned. At seven twenty-five they watched something about a Scottish doctor and his housemaid, which all seemed very slow and provincial to her. Alan explained that this was one of the most popular programmes on television. Hilary had never heard of it.

  ‘They’ll be discussing this storyline in every pub, office and factory in Britain tomorrow,’ he said. ‘That’s the great thing about television: it’s one of the fibres that holds the country together. It collapses class distinctions and helps create a sense of national identity.’

  He was equally lyrical about the next two programmes: a documentary called The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and another news bulletin at nine o’clock, this one lasting a quarter of an hour.

  ‘The BBC is respected the world over for the quality and fair-mindedness of its news coverage. Thanks to the World Service, you can tune in a radio almost anywhere on the globe and be sure to hear impartial, authoritative bulletins, mixed in with lighter programmes which maintain the highest standards in music and entertainment. It’s one of our greatest post-war achievements.’

  Until now Hilary had merely been bored, but at this point things started to go rapidly downhill. She was made to sit through a dreadful comedy show called Nearest and Dearest, full of coarse jokes which had the studio audience screeching with vulgar laughter, and then they saw a thing called It’s a Knockout, which featured a series of witless outdoor games. She began to squirm with rage and embarrassment. Unconsciously, she channelled her agitation through her fingertips by reaching across to a fruit bowl next to the sofa and plucking off grape after grape: she would peel each one with her tapered fingernail before popping it into her mouth. A little pile of the skins started to form on her lap.

  ‘This isn’t my sort of show at all,’ said Alan. ‘But I don’t look down on it. You have to make things which appeal to everyone. Everyone’s entitled to their bit of fun.’

  They finished off by turning over to BBC2 and watching a series called Ooh La La!, adapted from the farces of Georges Feydeau. This one starred Donald Sinden and Barbara Windsor. Hilary fell asleep halfway through, and woke up just in time to catch the end of an astronomy programme presented by a peculiar man in an ill-fitting suit.

  ‘So there you have it,’ said Alan proudly. ‘News, entertainment, comedy, documentary and classical drama in equal measure. There’s no other country in the world which could offer you an experience like that.’ With his gentle, melodious voice and greying bushes of hair he was beginning to look and sound, to Hilary, like the worst sort of parish priest. ‘And it’s all in the hands of people like you. Talented youngsters whose task in the years to come will be to carry the tradition forward.’

  At the end of the holiday, Roddy and Hilary took the train back to their parents’ current home in Sussex.

  ‘I thought old Mr Beamish was a bit of a sweetie, actually,’ said Roddy, taking out a cigarette. ‘And yet Henry told me that he’s frightfully left wing.’ He lit up. ‘Hasn’t rubbed off on Hugo, thank God. Anyway, you’d never guess it, would you?’

  Hilary stared out of the window.

  ∗

  From THE 10 MOST LIKELY: colour feature in Tatler, October 1976

  Lovely Hilary Winshaw is a recent Cambridge graduate who intends to make quite a splash in her new job at——Television, where she will be training as a producer. Hilary already has strong views about the work which lies ahead of her. ‘I think of television as one of the fibres which holds the country together,’ she says. ‘It’s brilliant at collapsing distinctions and building a sense of identity. And that’s definitely a tradition I hope to encourage and foster.’

  In this picture Hilary is all ready to keep the winter cold at bay with a Royal Samink cape from Furs Renée, 39 Dover St, Wl (£3,460), sweater with roll-neck in camel cashmere by Pringle, 28 Old Bond St, Wl (£52.50), gloves in camel wool, medium-length from Herbert Johnson Ladies Shop, 80 Grosvenor St, Wl (£14.95), and boots in beige leather, mid calf, with stacked heels, from Midas at 36 Hans Crescent, SW1 (£129).

  ∗

  ——Television plc. Extract from minutes of Executive Board Meeting, 14 November 1983. Confidential.

  … It was reiterated at this point that nobody undervalued Ms Winshaw’s contribution to the company’s programming successes over the last seven years. However, Mr Fisher insisted that her decision to purchase TMT, the American production company, for £120 million in 1981, had never been offered to the board for proper scrutiny. He asked for clarification on four points:

  i) was she aware that, at the time of purchase, TMT was running up losses of $32 million a year?

  ii) was she aware that her weekly flights to Hollywood, the purchase of her flat in Los Angeles, and the running expenses of her three company cars had all been cited as major contributing factors in the assessment, by independent management consultants Webster Hadfield, that the company’s costs were currently 40% too high?

  iii) was she aware that her policy of purchasing low-cost drama from TMT, and then insisting that it be re-edited by the addition of previously deleted sequences (in order to expand the runn
ing time – often by as much as thirty minutes – and thereby increase the cost-effectiveness of the purchase) had significantly influenced the IBA’s recent judgment that the company was failing to meet acceptable quality thresholds?