 |
 | |
I am very sorry.
Very, very sorry indeed and not just because that is what we are supposed to be all of the time now whether we are or not but because we have failed you or rather I have failed you and you have not had a newsletter since the end of August when it was before the rentree and Stephen Sackur wrote to you about his confusion while staying in the Today capsule hotel on Shepherd's Bush Green.
While I am very sorry I am not at all guilty because it is all Stephen "excusez mois, avez vous un Gauloise" Sackur's fault that we have been so busy - well, Sarah has anyway - fettling out the ashtrays, treating the velveteen studio sofas with Fabreze and gathering up the dozens of tab ends louchely tossed about the place marking the spots where the Jacques Brel of news broadcasting engaged Indarjit Singh or Anne Atkins or somesuch in intense dialectic on their Thought for the Day.
We should be more sympathetic of Mr Sackur's - or should we call 'im M. Sackeur - "neu 'abits" I suppose because we are more cosmopolitan now since most of us have been to the continent and some more than once but the truth is that although the continent is fine for holidays it does funny things to you if you spend any length of time there and one of the things it does is make you think it is the height of sophistication to lower the lights and conduct lengthy debates about existentialism with a couple of centimetres of toasted shag wrapped in liquorice paper hanging from your lower lip.
And then there are the clothes. It was part way through the first week that we noticed the baggy tweed jacket and shapeless cords hanging on M. Sackeur's peg while he was in the studio and some awful images flitted through our minds but it was not like that at all. The Brussels crooner was not naked at all but seducing the microphone dressed in one of those cotton and silk black polo-necks and tightly-cut "slacks" with no pockets so that you have nowhere to put your loose change and for that matter no room for anything much else loose and though I don't want to appear to dwell on this aspect there really are some trouser related bits and bobs that you simply don't want to see in profile like that especially not lit by the low sun of a late August sunrise which can produce such scarily elongated shadows.
If you have been away like all of us have been then there is much you might have missed. Jim's reports from New York where George W. Bush's Republican Party met in convention, for example.
Some of you have written to me to say you did not want to hear about things like this which is a bit odd since either Mr Kerry or Mr Bush will soon be the most powerful man in the world and it'll be no good complaining then that you didn't know what either man's policies, leanings or instincts are.
From a similar neck of the woods, Erica Jong intrigued, delighted and enraged many of you with her parallels between the world of Sappho and our own while the Archbishop of Canterbury tried to answer the question many were asking after the Beslan massacre - where was God?
And you might also have missed Jon Manel's interview with Douglas and Penelope Hamilton, the brother and widow of Michael Hamilton, the British banker killed by terrorists in Saudi Arabia.
Judging by your emails, though, the interviews that most of you found most compelling were Angus Stickler's with Lisa Arthuworrey, the social worker in the Victoria Climbie case.
So it is that we are now back to normal though one very strange thing happened at the end of last week. In a particularly heavy rainstorm we were lolling on the studio settees blowing cappuccino froth at each other when there was a loud banging at the door. The saintly Ed was deputed to go look out of the window to see who it was.
"Some filthy mendicant," He spluttered, setting aside the monograph he was working on entitled "Charity in a world of beastliness" and adjusting his new dog collar which seemed a bit over-tight . "Best not let him in he'll smell and want feeding."
But it was too late because M. Sackeur who was unable to sit down anyway because of the trouser issue had already opened the door letting in first the powerful and incendiary reek of meths and cheap lager followed by a bundle of rags wrapped loosely around the broken frame of what had once been a man.
"Is he allright?" barked the saintly Ed, backing off while wafting the vagrant's pungency from his nostrils. "Who are you ? What's your name ?"
"E... E... Ephraim.... Har...." the broken man gasped.
"Har... what ?" The beatific one inquired testily. "Harbottle ? Harbinger ? Hardiman-Scott ? Speak, man, or push off."
But it was no good. With a gigantic eructation of volatile gases that could have lit a small town for an evening the man slumped by the swan's water bowl, his pleading eyes barely open.
"Journalist ... have ... pity ... I used to be ... a journalist ... but ... now .... IT'S THE TRANSVESTITES - TAKE SISSIES AWAY"
And with that final, delusional cry he slumped back, eyes open but clearly vacant.
We do not know who he is - but if you have lost a derelict, sad, broken, aromatic friend or colleague who perhaps was once something in the world but who is now resigned to his own repulsive uselessness and loose grasp on reality and answers to the name of Ephraim - and who we should pity not condemn - then do let us know.
Kevin
|
|
|
