As its outgoing, demob happy, antipodean director, Shane Danielson, wittered endlessly on by way of an introduction, the Dublin oik grunted: “Some people don’t know when to get off the stage.” When eventually the movie got under way, Mr Byrne chatted to his companion and read e-mails on his BlackBerry. Then, after a mere half an hour, he upped and left, causing maximum disruption in the stalls. What a tosser!
A wee problem for Günter
FROM my man at the Brandenburg Gate: “Wall to wall – ha! – coverage here in Berlin after Günter Grass revealed he was in the Waffen-SS.”Essential reading is Bild Zeitung, the German equivalent of The Sun, which has come out in favour of GG. It had a picture of the wartime document showing that Herr Grass ’fessed up to being in the SS at the time of his capture at the end of the war. In other words, he didn’t conceal he was in the Waffen-SS, just didn’t publicise it. A day later, Bild Zeitung ran extracts from his autobiography with the must-read headline: Filled with fear, I pissed my pants.
Hard to imagine the Currant Bun giving similar coverage to, say, Martin Amis admitting he’d been in the IRA. By the by, Bild is a full-colour broadsheet, not a toxic tabloid. Nor does it have Page Three stunnas. It sticks them where they deserve to be – on Page One. Thus there were boobs and bums on the front page and a Nobel prize winner on the back. What more could you want!”
l Realpolitik: page 31
Singing from the same hymn sheet
I am a wee bit concerned about my dear friend Harry Reid, the hirsute former editor of The Herald. Writing in the latest issue of the Kirk’s magazine Life And Work – aka Amen Only – he is now calling himself Dr Reid, in order, perhaps, to compete with another Dr Reid who wouldn’t know a stethoscope from a periscope. Dr Harry is about to publish the book of a forthcoming TV series on the Scottish press, titled Deadline. In Amen Only, he considers how the press covers religion. This can be summed up in a word: badly.
As only someone of his venerability can, Dr Harry takes us back to the 1950s when a union between the Church of Scotland and the Church of England was mooted. Thanks largely to the intervention of the Scottish Daily Express and its proprietor, Lord Beaverbrook, “the Beaver”, this mad idea was throttled in infancy. Were something similar proposed today, it’s hard to imagine the Sexpress getting into a lather about it.
Back in the good old days, says Dr Harry, papers such as the Press and Journal religiously reported presbytery meetings. The P&J used to send three reporters to cover the General Assembly. Alas, no more. Controversially, Dr Harry says its media office should move from Edinburgh to Glasgow, “Scotland’s media capital”, with the object of putting the “Kirk’s affairs at the centre of our nation’s life”. Like another of his excellent suggestions – to put an Angel of the North-style statue on top of Arthur’s Seat – I fear this may fall on stony ground. I refer him to St Matthew ch.14, v.27: “A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house.”
Getting frisky on the Orkney ferry
BAD news for anyone who suffers from dry skin: hand cream is a no-no on flights to the US. This was one of the lethal ingredients found in the possession of Catherine Mayo, a 59-year-old from Vermont who was arrested over a mid-air “passenger disturbance” en route from Heathrow to Boston. Others included: a screwdriver, matches and cigarette lighters. Apparently, America-bound passengers are not allowed to carry certain types of matches, “such as those that can be struck anywhere”.
As paranoia grows, one is increasingly aware of the number of lethal weapons used in the course of daily life, including pencils which, when in the wrong hands – an Olympic javelin thrower say – may be hurtled like spears; coins, which can cause untold damage when dropped from a great height, such as the Forth Bridge, and spectacle cases, ideal for jamming fingers.
On top of all of which, body searches are becoming ever more “rigorous”. According to unconfirmed reports, Home Office guidelines are being interpreted imaginatively, even on Orkney ferries where surgically-gloved officials have been subjecting passengers to frisking on a scale hitherto unknown outside a medical centre. One can perhaps see the need for this on transatlantic routes where the threat of suicide nutters is most potent. But on the Stromness to Hoy ferry?
Hot air at the Book Festival
AND so, to the Edinburgh International Book Festival, sponsored by this throbbing organ, which draws to Charlotte Square Gardens an endless gush of genius. There, for example, goes Tony Benn, sucking on an unlit pipe, perhaps unaware that the smoking ban does not apply in the great Celtic outdoors. It is all so civilised, so ned-free, one begins to long for a spot of loutishness. So many thanks to Will Self who, when reminded by his chairperson Jackie McGlone of his status as a Grumpy Old Man, stuck up a solitary finger.
Better behaved were crime writers Ian Rankin and Denise Mina. Mr Rankin told of how his mother diagnosed blowing into a paper bag to cure panic attacks. Ms Mina said her mama had said something similar, but blow as hard as she might she felt no better. She’d misheard her; she thought she’d said blow into a paperback.
Crime was conspicuous by its ubiquitous presence at Charlotte Square, which speaks volumes for these gritty times. Less evident was romance. To redress the balance the Romantic Novelists’ Association held a lunch at Holyrood on Friday in honour of three “veteran” romantics: Lucilla Andrews, who patented the hospital romance, Rosamunde Pilcher, author of The Shell Seekers, and Mary Stewart, the doyenne of the genre, who had 14 New York Times bestsellers. We raise a rose-tinted glass to them all.
20 August 2006
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