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| Priti Patel bites the dust – after leaving a hell of a carbon footprint | Priti Patel bites the dust – after leaving a hell of a carbon footprint |
| (2 months later) | |
| This week I missed Theresa May at the launch party for my new book, and enjoyed the news about antiques-savvy sheep | |
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| Fri 10 Nov 2017 12.52 GMT | |
| Last modified on Mon 27 Nov 2017 13.59 GMT | |
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| Monday | Monday |
| Bleak Sunday evenings have been immeasurably improved by the arrival of Blue Planet II. Seldom has being educated and informed been made to feel so enjoyable. The photography is breathtaking, the array of marine wildlife even more so. I can only admire the dedication of the camera crews who must have hung around for weeks filming not very much, waiting for the 10-second money shot. The whole show is so full of extraordinary sequences that have never previously been caught on film before, that part of me wonders if they haven’t made some of it up. I can just imagine the planning meetings. David Attenborough: “What have you got for me this time?” Researcher: “We’ve some dolphins we’ve trained to surf.” Attenborough: “That’s pathetic. I want a fish with legs, an eel in toxic shock and an acrobatic giant trevally that can catch birds in the air. And while you’re about it, find me a serial-killer shark with an underwater machine gun.” Researcher: “But …” Attenborough: “Just do it. The CGI is pretty good these days.” | Bleak Sunday evenings have been immeasurably improved by the arrival of Blue Planet II. Seldom has being educated and informed been made to feel so enjoyable. The photography is breathtaking, the array of marine wildlife even more so. I can only admire the dedication of the camera crews who must have hung around for weeks filming not very much, waiting for the 10-second money shot. The whole show is so full of extraordinary sequences that have never previously been caught on film before, that part of me wonders if they haven’t made some of it up. I can just imagine the planning meetings. David Attenborough: “What have you got for me this time?” Researcher: “We’ve some dolphins we’ve trained to surf.” Attenborough: “That’s pathetic. I want a fish with legs, an eel in toxic shock and an acrobatic giant trevally that can catch birds in the air. And while you’re about it, find me a serial-killer shark with an underwater machine gun.” Researcher: “But …” Attenborough: “Just do it. The CGI is pretty good these days.” |
| Tuesday | Tuesday |
| The launch party for my new book, I, Maybot: The Rise and Fall, in the lovely surroundings of Daunt’s bookshop in Cheapside. I’ve always had an ambivalent feeling towards my own book launches. I get terribly upset if the publisher says she doesn’t think it’s worth having one because they’re a bit of a waste of time and money as they don’t do anything to promote the book – that’s happened to me on numerous occasions – and extremely anxious if they say: “OK, go ahead and have one on us. Who are you going to invite?” Because then I have the worry of not knowing who is going to turn up, and spend the days before the event imagining it will be just me, the publisher and a few loyal friends and family, sipping glasses of fizzy water and warm white wine trying to pretend the place is rammed and everyone is having a good time. I’m also forced to face the contradictions of my own personality. Every writer wants to be read by as wide an audience as possible, but frequently when I am the centre of attention I feel hideously exposed and vulnerable. As it happened, loads of people came – thank you, one and all – and everyone but me appeared to have a good time. The only downside was that Theresa May didn’t come. Without her there would have been no book. | The launch party for my new book, I, Maybot: The Rise and Fall, in the lovely surroundings of Daunt’s bookshop in Cheapside. I’ve always had an ambivalent feeling towards my own book launches. I get terribly upset if the publisher says she doesn’t think it’s worth having one because they’re a bit of a waste of time and money as they don’t do anything to promote the book – that’s happened to me on numerous occasions – and extremely anxious if they say: “OK, go ahead and have one on us. Who are you going to invite?” Because then I have the worry of not knowing who is going to turn up, and spend the days before the event imagining it will be just me, the publisher and a few loyal friends and family, sipping glasses of fizzy water and warm white wine trying to pretend the place is rammed and everyone is having a good time. I’m also forced to face the contradictions of my own personality. Every writer wants to be read by as wide an audience as possible, but frequently when I am the centre of attention I feel hideously exposed and vulnerable. As it happened, loads of people came – thank you, one and all – and everyone but me appeared to have a good time. The only downside was that Theresa May didn’t come. Without her there would have been no book. |
| Wednesday | Wednesday |
| On Tuesday, Theresa May decided to show she was taking control of the Priti Patel situation by packing the international development secretary off to Uganda with Liam Fox. Today she chose to show she was taking control by making Priti fly all the way back from Africa just to be sacked. That’s one hell of a carbon footprint just to delay a dismissal by a day. Patel’s journey home from Nairobi – she never even got as far as Uganda – on Kenya Airways KQ100 turned out to be one of the most comprehensively tracked flights in aviation history with more than 22,000 people following its progress online. The flight must have been an unusual form of torture for Patel and you wouldn’t blame her for wishing one of her fellow passengers had been the woman who made such a fuss on the Qatar Airways flight from Doha to Bali – after unlocking her husband’s phone with his thumb while he slept and discovering he had been having an affair – that the plane had to be diverted. If that had happened while Patel was over Egypt she could have asked to be dropped off at Tel Aviv so she could resume her holiday with Benjamin Netanyahu. | On Tuesday, Theresa May decided to show she was taking control of the Priti Patel situation by packing the international development secretary off to Uganda with Liam Fox. Today she chose to show she was taking control by making Priti fly all the way back from Africa just to be sacked. That’s one hell of a carbon footprint just to delay a dismissal by a day. Patel’s journey home from Nairobi – she never even got as far as Uganda – on Kenya Airways KQ100 turned out to be one of the most comprehensively tracked flights in aviation history with more than 22,000 people following its progress online. The flight must have been an unusual form of torture for Patel and you wouldn’t blame her for wishing one of her fellow passengers had been the woman who made such a fuss on the Qatar Airways flight from Doha to Bali – after unlocking her husband’s phone with his thumb while he slept and discovering he had been having an affair – that the plane had to be diverted. If that had happened while Patel was over Egypt she could have asked to be dropped off at Tel Aviv so she could resume her holiday with Benjamin Netanyahu. |
| Thursday | Thursday |
| While Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales struggle on, hovering one level above abject misery, the Office for National Statistics reports that England has had an upsurge in its happiness ratings since the Brexit vote last year. So a big thank you to the prime minister and her confederacy of dunces for doing do much to keep the country’s spirits up. Curiously, the knowledge that the British enthusiasm for satire – it takes a certain type of personality to carry on laughing while you’re being driven over a cliff edge – shows no signs of diminishing has cheered me up immensely. As has the news that sheep are a lot brighter than previously imagined and can pick Fiona Bruce out of a crowd. I’m much cheered by the idea that sheep haven’t been hanging around in fields, chewing grass and morosely wondering when they would be taken to the abattoir. Rather they have been using their limited time alive to bone up on the current values of 19th-century Wedgwood china in anticipation of the next episode of Antiques Roadshow. | While Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales struggle on, hovering one level above abject misery, the Office for National Statistics reports that England has had an upsurge in its happiness ratings since the Brexit vote last year. So a big thank you to the prime minister and her confederacy of dunces for doing do much to keep the country’s spirits up. Curiously, the knowledge that the British enthusiasm for satire – it takes a certain type of personality to carry on laughing while you’re being driven over a cliff edge – shows no signs of diminishing has cheered me up immensely. As has the news that sheep are a lot brighter than previously imagined and can pick Fiona Bruce out of a crowd. I’m much cheered by the idea that sheep haven’t been hanging around in fields, chewing grass and morosely wondering when they would be taken to the abattoir. Rather they have been using their limited time alive to bone up on the current values of 19th-century Wedgwood china in anticipation of the next episode of Antiques Roadshow. |
| Friday | Friday |
| You’d have thought that Barack Obama would have been a shoo-in to be foreman on any jury, but the former president and lawyer didn’t even make the cut for the final 12 when he reported for jury duty in Chicago. Obama was sent home without being selected. I just hope the person who replaced him was rather more competent than one of my fellow jurors on the one occasion I was called up more than 15 years ago. Having finessed my way to being foreman at the outset of our deliberations, I began by asking each person to say whether they thought the defendant was guilty or not just to see how we all stood. It was all going fine until one juror said: “I don’t think he’s guilty but his accomplice definitely is.” As there was only one defendant, this caused some confusion until it emerged that this particular juror was trying to send the accused’s interpreter to prison. He quickly changed his verdict to not guilty and didn’t say a word for the rest of the trial. | You’d have thought that Barack Obama would have been a shoo-in to be foreman on any jury, but the former president and lawyer didn’t even make the cut for the final 12 when he reported for jury duty in Chicago. Obama was sent home without being selected. I just hope the person who replaced him was rather more competent than one of my fellow jurors on the one occasion I was called up more than 15 years ago. Having finessed my way to being foreman at the outset of our deliberations, I began by asking each person to say whether they thought the defendant was guilty or not just to see how we all stood. It was all going fine until one juror said: “I don’t think he’s guilty but his accomplice definitely is.” As there was only one defendant, this caused some confusion until it emerged that this particular juror was trying to send the accused’s interpreter to prison. He quickly changed his verdict to not guilty and didn’t say a word for the rest of the trial. |
| Digested week, digested: Another one bites the dust. | Digested week, digested: Another one bites the dust. |
| Picture of the week | Picture of the week |
| Politics | |
| Digested week | |
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