DIARY
JAMES NAUGHTIE The trouble with living in a goldfish bowl is that it is uncomfortable, and your little world seems distorted and bent to outsiders. Yet in the lush fronds of Broad- casting House, through which we swim day and night, you can find the answer to the question of the moment: if you watch for long enough you can see anything you want to see, including monsters where there are none. These last few days have been extraordinary. To begin at the beginning, John Humphrys is not a political partisan. Anyone who knows him knows that. And the interview which apparently provoked Jonathan Aitken was the kind of merry affair that it is almost impossible not to have with Ken Clarke — no doubt the sort of conversation the Chancellor and his Chief Secretary have daily in the Treasury, where I am sure there is no rule about not interrupting. In other words, it was authen- tic, a proper journalistic job and a proper reflection of the Chancellor's style. Yet this has caused the heavens to open and tor- rents to fall, the latest downpour in this magazine's pages today. Fortunately there is some comic relief. Being lectured by Woodrow Wyatt on the sanctity of journal- istic impartiality makes you feel as if you are in an early Waugh novel.
There are even some nice surprises, like a Sun leader praising the BBC. But through it all comes the drone of an old song, a cho- rus which at various times Harold Wilson, Tony Benn, Norman Tebbit and now Jonathan Aitken have all bellowed with gusto. The Aitken assertion that the propri- ety of an interview can largely be judged by counting the number of interruptions , as recorded in a written transcript is more of a belief than an argument; just as the Benn conviction that the BBC is the Establish- ment personified is part of an unshakeable faith. From the studio it seems different. Interviews are human encounters. They depend on the personality of the guest, the mood, the background to the encounter, the state of nerves of the interviewee. One of Today's great advantages is that the stu- dio and the corridors around it often feel like Victoria Station with a happy bustle of customers, and the sounds of the start of another day. Journalism is a human busi- ness, not a scientific experiment. There is no obsession, no trickery, no settled politi- cal view among the staff or presenters just an effort at fresh journalism every morning, a front page of the air with the dimension of the intimacy that only radio provides. That intimacy is delicate and sometimes uncomfortable. And I believe that Radio Four listeners would never sac- rifice it, even on the occasions when it annoys a few of them, because they know that in contrast to the professional parti- sanship of Westminster they are getting 'something authentic. It is our job to make things ring true.
Authenticity always seems particularly scarce at Oscars time. We can argue about precisely when it passed from amiable farce to absurdity — Marlon Brando's Indian protest? Liz Taylor's effort to read the cards in a normal voice between sips? but there is no doubt that it is now beyond parody, an unassailable monument to the ridiculous. It is not that good people don't win (though far too many of them don't) but that everything genuine has been effi- ciently expunged from the proceedings. I am sure that Elton John was indeed grate- ful to his granny, but it is now not possible to separate the phony from the real: this has become a world of which Disney him- self would have been proud. Indeed the animators are probably now the purveyors of the real: wliether The Wrong Trousers last year or Bob's Birthday this year, I find it easier to believe in them than in whoever Tom Hanks has decided to play. The peo- ple no longer seem to be people, because they've run out of tricks and the last tear- duct is dry. Only one thing could have res- cued Hollywood this week. They should have buried Ronnie Kray in Forest Lawns.
But those of us who still have faith in the written word as a bulwark against such staged excesses have been getting a batter- ing at the &ands ofi.Martio Amis. ileAsight • of his book and /We itilittithiMriesftfya A.J.P. Taylor's History is bunk.' typewriter in every bookshop is becoming an almost insurmountable barrier to buying it. Having declined gracefully the Observer's invitation to spend `a weekend with Amis', intending none the less to buy the book, I now find it almost impossible to approach it. It has become like a first encounter with Henry James, something that requires months and maybe even years of prepara- tion and meditation. Knowing that it's not Henry James makes it worse. And then there is the sulky presence on every maga- zine cover. Irrational it may be, but I find my enthusiasm waning by the day. The Guardian's review adds weight to the fears. The Information is not about a mid-life cri- sis — it concludes — it is a mid-life crisis. His cause is alniost lost. Indeed, affected perhaps by all the Grand Guignol of the Oscars and one of the last gangland funer- als, I find myself hallucinating. Just as the eyeglasses of Dr Eckleburg gaze down on the world of The Great Gatsby, I can see them now on every hoarding, shining in the sun and gleaming in the dark. Martin Amis's new teeth.
But I am reminded of the real world by the Sunday Telegraph, which usually has the opposite effect. It remarks that it has been a bad week for those Japanese who have sought to persuade the outside world that they were the sort of people you would happily invite home for dinner. Putting on one side the question of how many people from the Sunday Telegraph you would wel- come to ypur table, this is a reminder of a great contemporary truth. The Japanese are the last powerful people on earth about whom it is thought permissible, in some corners of once-polite society, to be gratu- itously insulting. Raspberries can be blown at the French, and the Germans can be grumbled about — but the Japanese can be happily insulted, because they are pre- sumed to be so different that no effort at understanding need be attempted. You could argue quite persuasively that it is those lingering habits that have made Britain's adaptation to the fin de siecle world so difficult. I've been thinking about gush things because of a walk-on part I have had to play in Douglas Hurd's grand conference on Britain in the World this wk. My concern has, however, been a lit- tle, less grand. I have been wondering wIsether to introduce Henry Kissinger — a dattnting prospect — not with one of his p tentous observations on diplomacy but one of the most telling things he has ever said. That the main advantage of being famous is that when you bore people at dinner parties they think it is their fault. Especially if you are the editor of the Sun- day Telegraph on a visit to Japan.
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