W here does Harold Pinter's seemingly limitless capacity for rage and
affront come from? What first, in other words, got the Pinter goat? A clue may be provided by an entrancing aside in Maureen Waller's London 1945: Life in the Debris of War. She describes the scene outside Buckingham Palace on YE Day, with huge crowds gathering in the hope of seeing the King and Queen waving from the balcony. Among those crowds was, incognito, the young Elizabeth II. Among them, too, was the play
wright to be then, apparently, a keener monarchist than he is now. Miss Waller reports: 'Harold Pinter, then 15, pinched the bottom of the girl in front, only to be knocked unconscious by her soldier boyfriend.' The source for this anecdote, incidentally: 'Harold Pinter. As recounted to the author.'
Awebsite, www. thebigromance.com. has ome up with a notion that might be called 'Book Lovers for Book Lovers'. Readers are invited to vote on which fictional character they most fancy. Each of the website's 44 suggestions (half are male, half female) comes with a portrait, usually from a film or television adaptation, and a sort of lonely-hearts introduction. So. of Manon des Sources: 'Maybe a picnic rather than a dinner date would suit.' Becky Sharp: 'Could you be the man to tame her unruly heart?' Daniel Deronda: 'Sensitive, caring and highly intelligent — Daniel's had a hard time since childhood.' Rhett Butler: 'Dashing, gallant — Rhett is the ultimate Southern gentleman.' It seems somewhat irresponsible of the proprietors of this literary dating agency, however, not to put any sort of health warning on Othello. So far, apparently, Moll Flanders leads the girls, and (inevitably) Mr Darcy tops the list of chaps.
Speaking of which, Pride and Prejudice is to be reintroduced to the world in feature-film format, the first movie version since Olivier donned the well-filled britches of Mr Darcy. Of particular interest to Janeites will be that filming of Pemberley, Darcy's home, is on location at Chatsworth, the place thought to have provided the inspiration for Austen's fictional house. I asked `Debo' Devonshire, Chatsworth's cheerful chatelaine, whether she credited the connection. 'I know a lot of people believe that Pemberley was modelled on Chatsworth, from the description of the park as they drive through it. My mother-in-law certainly always thought so.' Is the Duchess a Pride and Prejudice enthusiast herself? 'I'm
afraid not. I've read hardly any of it.'
rrfie hardworking historian Dr A. D. I Harvey writes, enclosing a fresh handful of his literary excavations from the Public Record Office. Among them is a 1941 note to the Director of Public Prosecutions regarding the possibility of prosecuting Noel Coward for a transatlantic tax dodge during the second world war. The Master, the DPP is informed, failed to surrender to the Treasury the $2,380.79 sitting in his account with the New York Trust Company, as at 3 September 1939, and made a pile on further transactions and securities which he 'failed to register with the Bank of England'. 'The amounts involved here are large and it is difficult to believe that Mr Coward is not an astute business man,' the letter concludes. He did not leave this country until the 18 July 1940 and must have known all about the Regulations. If the contraventions were not deliberate, they were at any rate the result of gross carelessness.' Gross carelessness ... or net carefulness, perhaps?
Robertswatch continues. I'm grateful to a Ileague for drawing my attention to a further instance of the uxorious historian and man-about-town finding space to plug his girlfriend's book. The scene is the Hayon-Wye festival of literature. Mr Roberts, a guest for the nonce of the Guardian, is invited as a creative experiment to fill an A4 page with a design of his own or a musing of his choosing. He wrote: 'In a recent Spectator leader, Boris complained to his readers/ Andrew's sole intention /Is constantly to mention/ Catherine de Medici, by Leonie Frieda.' Roberts adds his own gloss: `(And he's right.)' Conversely, how does Miss Frieda face up to the A4 Challenge? She has drawn a cartoon of Mr Roberts lecturing at Hay,
standing on a 'Special Box for Persons of Restricted Growth'. The title of his own book of counterfactuals, What Might Have Been, is clearly visible, but a figure apparently intended to represent Miss Frieda is musing: 'Christ, this is a bore, He's been banging on for 40 minutes and hasn't plugged my book yet ...' We had best move swiftly on.
After all the fuss surrounding the publicaion of her memoirs, the former MIS boss Dame Stella Rimington's first novel At Risk was bound to attract circling birds, not least those who wonder whether spooks use ghostwriters. And among those circling birds is David Shayler, who raises a curious point about the book. Rimington has characters talk about MI5, MI6 and Special Branch as 'five', 'six' and 'the Branch', terms he claims which are 'simply never used by MI5 officers, but are used by those who think they are in the know'. Is this a depressing instance of someone bringing genuine specialist knowledge to a publisher, and then having deliberately to get it wrong so as to give readers what they've come to expect? Or is Shayler talking through his hat? My inquiries having proved inconclusive, I'd be grateful if any proper spies would get in touch to settle the matter.
With Bloomsday not long behind us, the excellent American magazine Harper's offers two statistics about Joyce's masterpiece. At least 28 brand names mentioned in Ulysses continue to trade to this day. The number of them involved in sponsoring the centennial Bloomsday celebrations, however? Two. Harper's doesn't mention which they are, but a call to their source, Fleishman-Hillard Saunders in Dublin, confirms that they were Guinness, naturally, and Denny sausages.
Elinally, the book no coffee table can I afford to be without. The Citizen's Guide to Stopping Suicide Attackers (Paladin Press) is illustrated throughout with 'how-to' photos showing grimacing fanatics going 'oaf!' as clued-up citizens incapacitate them with all manner of violence. Among the weapons in 'the Airline Arsenal', for example: 'Meal trays are light but robust, ideal for crushing a hijacker's windpipe, 'soda cans can be turned into makeshift blades ... it's a good idea to practise making these weapons at home so you will not have to waste precious time experimenting under the intense pressure of a hijack crisis.' Wise words indeed.
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