25October1996

My dear folks, Friday 25 October: En route to Lisbon.

It took me 3 days of intermittent phoning to get this flight & it was worth every minute of it, even though it’s to Lisbon rather than Faro. The Faro flights were fully booked over what turned out to be a holiday weekend - unless you were rich or silly enough to travel Club Class at 3 times the discounted fare I usually pay. I have objections in principle as well as in pocket to paying Club fares because status is all you get for your money. You sit in the same narrow seats, to Faro at least, as the proles behind you, with just a little curtain to separate you from the herd & a tiny bottle of imitation bubbly to make you feel good. I think it’s outrageous.

Instead, this plane is going to Lisbon where I’m to meet Jones in a couple of hours. Both TAP & BA use wide-bodied jets on the Lisbon route; they’re so much more comfortable than the smaller jobs, particularly if you like to wile away the flight, as I do, by catching up on your correspondence. And if there’s a double bonus, it’s to be sitting in the front row as I am, with an empty seat beside you, as I have. Last week, I nearly got my fingers crushed when the passenger in front of me suddenly shoved his chair back. Normally, I’m trying to tuck my elbows into my hips while I type down in my crotch, trying all the while to keep my neighbour’s jam off the keyboard. The worst scenario is being jammed in against some big guy. I pray that I’m sitting beside a woman. On rare occasions it’s the delight of an empty seat. And today, as I say, it’s the travel equivalent of a lottery win.....5 star luxury at 1 star prices.

One of these days when I win the real lottery, I’ll probably travel in real style up with the gentry in the front of the plane. I haven’t made up my mind yet, mind you. I’m not sure whether I should exercise some restraint by merely travelling Club or go the whole hog & put on a fancy accent in 1st. Not that I’m under any pressure to decide. When I have an idle moment in the newsroom, I wander around appointing colleagues to the cabinet I shall lead when I’m dictator of the world. Some I merely promise an important job without specifying a portfolio. They seem content with this. And some of the more attractive females I appoint as senior wives in my intended harem, with everything they want to keep them happy. They don’t seem as happy with the prospect but no doubt they will be when I rule the world, to be married to such an important man.

It does no harm to dream, as I tell the more surprised ones - not that they’re very surprised any more - & I tell them about the advantages of being a devotee of Bobo, my personal deity whose prophet, you may recall, it is my good fortune to be. Only two rules in this religion, I point out to them; Bobo makes the rules & I speak for Bobo. It’s worth adding that I take up the collections myself & Bobo isn’t fussed about the number of wives the devout may choose to take.

It was my intention last night to get away from the office in good time in view of my early departure for Heathrow this a.m. But trust fate to come along & stab me in the eye. Late evening I got a call from a colleague at Bush who’d obtained a video about an unfortunate Tibetan music scholar whom the Chinese have detained on suspicion of being a spy. Was I interested, she wanted to know. I was! I arranged to have the video biked over to Television Centre & went to talk to the head of dept. It’s always tricky to compile a report from material supplied by a pressure group, even if you religiously point out its origins as we always do. She - the boss - gave me some pretty explicit dos and don’ts. My head on the block, I told her. No, she repliedd, her head on the block! I got the point.

The video, when it arrived, turned out to be a swine, a production voiced by Goldy Hawn, with musical accompaniment, endless mixes between scenes, sub-titles, numerous snippets of interviews......It’s very difficult to cut such material & equally difficult to make clear to the viewer which elements are yours & which are part of the original. It took an hour, before I could even start, to transfer the material from the VHS format on which it arrived to the format we use. When I eventually went upstairs to ask half a dozen colleagues for a critical eye, they opined that I should cut out one emotive section because it wasn’t clear whether the BBC or the pressure group was responsible for the emotion. So down I went again. The long of it (I can’t exactly say “the long & the short) was that instead of getting away at 18.30, as I’d hoped, I finally cycled into the night after 22.00. At least, as I messaged the boss, not even the Chinese embassy could find fault with it after the critical drubbing it had undergone.

Like many other broadcasters, World Service finds itself in an awkward position where dissidents & unpleasant regimes are concerned, more so because its transmissions can be received in most of the countries concerned. We are not crusading journalists & we do not regard it as part of our remit to help get dissidents out of prison. But we do regard it as an essential part of the job to report on the nature of the world’s less pleasant regimes (as well as the more pleasant ones) & on the way they treat those people who oppose them. We also try constantly to give both sides a hearing, even when this means giving air time to some of the least fragrant juntas imaginable. It can be a bit like giving Hitler a chance, at times

The Quinta: Saturday a.m. It’s a beautiful morning. Soon Jones & I will wander down to town & try to talk to the pump man whose beautiful new pump remains switched off because when it comes on it stays on. I met Jones at the Meeting Point in the airport & we managed the wickedly difficult task of leaving Lisbon with only one false circuit (which brought us right back to the airport). We chose a back roads route home, long but lovely, the last hour winding through the hills between the setting sun to the east of us & the rising full moon to the east. The road defies imagination. I was forever pulling the wheel 180* left & then spinning it round as far to the right. Then a 100 metre spurt up to 70 kms before falling back to 40 for the next hairpin. We didn’t mind. One moment we were looking across the pink mauve hills to the sunset & the next over the ghostly grey hills in the moonlight.

When we arrived, we split a bottle of local bubbly & then wandered down the road in the bright moonlight to the Cafe Ideal for a couple of tummy settlers. I drank malt whisky. Jones asked for Bagaceira which the barman poured out of a huge plastic flagon - the home made fire water. It certainly had a fiery odour. I can’t drink the stuff without some coke to quell the flames. But Jones comes of hardy stock.

Enough musings unto the hour.
T