Martin Harbottle's Appreciation of Time (14 page)

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Re:
20.20 Premier Westward Railways train from London Paddington to Oxford, September 20. Amount of my day wasted: nine minutes. Fellow sufferers: Sauron Flesh Harrower.

Dear Martin

We’re in the dock, old boy! It’s the court case of the century. It’s the eternal struggle, the classic showdown: it’s good versus evil. (‘Good’ in this instance being represented by a multimillionaire egomaniac singer with a history of illegal and semi-legal vice to his name; and ‘evil’ being the world’s most-read English-language newspaper, dedicated to, amongst other things, exposing the illegal activities of multimillionaire egomaniac singers.) It’s exciting, isn’t it? Two days in and already it’s unmissable.

All the rolling news channels are covering it. Most of the newsroom are streaming live blog updates on their desktops, too. Twitter feeds are being monitored, the newswires are being constantly refreshed – all for the latest word from inside the Royal Courts of Justice.

Are you watching too, Martin? Is that why my train is late again? Have you been distracted by the case for the prosecution? Can’t say I blame you. It’s sensational stuff. But just in case you haven’t been following (in which case, why is this train delayed?), I’ll sum up for you.

First big surprise? It’s not going to be the short, sharp shock everyone predicted. No in-and-out job, this. We’re up for a long haul. On day one, both lawyers laid out their respective positions. And if the case for the prosecution went on a bit, then our bewigged boys did so right back.

Is this to be about one priapic crooner and his outrage at being outed as such? Apparently not. The way our synthetic-blond, Bravehearted friend is going about it, this is going to be the whole
Globe
on trial: our means, our methods, our motivations. His QC was pretty clear about it; he said so right at the start. ‘We have not sought to bring this case because of the way my client has been treated by this newspaper,’ he declared. ‘We are here today because my client is just one of many hundreds of victims of this newspaper’s endemic and systematic culture of bullying and abuse. The difference is, he has chosen to stand up to them. He has chosen to say “no more”. Over the course of this trial you are going to hear about how the activities at this newspaper have frequently shown complete disregard to the law of the land. And, might I add, not just where my client is concerned.’

Fierce stuff, eh, Martin. Crikey! I don’t know about you, but when I heard that I thought: well, I’d send them down. Guilty as charged, your honour.

Do you do that thing, when you watch
Perry Mason
or
A Few Good Men
or
To Kill A Mockingbird
– that thing where you change your mind about the verdict depending on who’s speaking? I do. When the prosecutors are doing their thing I’m all for taking the accused away right there and then. No further evidence needed. And then, when the defence gets up, suddenly it’s as if the veil has been lifted from my eyes and I’m finally seeing the truth for the first time. Suddenly the only possible verdict one could deliver has to be ‘Not Guilty’!

Every time. I do it every time. I’d be hopeless on jury service.

So… although it was looking bad right then, although that opening salvo had me wondering if my whole career really was a colossal mistake, it only took the afternoon session and our opening statement to turn it all around for me.

The threats were implied, Martin, that was the clever thing. The suggestions were planted: the newspaper knows more than it has let on already. We laid our strategy out plain and clear. It was all: ‘This newspaper has secured the convictions of murderers, paedophiles, gun runners, drug cheats, benefit cheats, bent MPs, bent cops, war criminals, drug pushers and sexual predators,’ and then it was all: ‘We report the news. We do not fabricate the news,’ and then there was a bit of: ‘What stories we may have run on the man who is charging us with this list of crimes have all been demonstrably and provably true. He may not like it, but if he doesn’t like it he shouldn’t do it,’ and then, best of all, right at the death: ‘We intend to defend ourselves, the honour of the world’s greatest newspaper and indeed the honour of all the world’s journalists, the honour of journalism itself, against the self-seeking, self-serving, self-interested motives of men like this who would seek to muzzle the truth for his own ends.’

Rock and roll! There was actual whooping in the newsroom! Stick that in your sporran and play with it! It’s going to be a fight – and what’s more, it looks like it’s going to be a dirty fight.

And do you know what the moral of the story is going to be, Martin? It’s going to be this, the same as it always is: don’t take on the tabloid press. Don’t take on the tabloid press because, eventually, in the end, you’ll always lose.

Au revoir
!

Dan

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Re:
07.31 Premier Westward Railways train from Oxford to London Paddington, September 24. Amount of my day wasted: seven minutes. Fellow sufferers: no regulars (Saturday, innit).

Dear Martin

What’s this? Another delay? That’s two in the same week – you’re getting sloppy again. You’ve fallen into those bad old habits once more. You want to look at that, Martin. You don’t want that to develop into some kind of culture of incompetence at Premier Westward, do you?

Because that, as we’re finding out, is what happens at institutions. They develop ‘cultures’. As the Trial Of The Century™ has told us this week, repeatedly, big institutions develop cultures: of incompetence, or arrogance, or deceit or illegality. (Never positive things. Never a culture of excellence, for example. Or a culture of rigorous investigation.)

It’s all gone a little flat, hasn’t it? After the explosive opening salvos, I mean. There’s been an awful lot of legal jargon and points of order and boring closed sessions between counsel and the judge. There has, to be blunt, been no dirt.

Would you like some dirt, Martin? Something filthy and titillating to wallow in while we wait for events to pick up again? You would! I thought so. How about another little tale from the vault, another little dirty secret that never got to see the light of day. Another reason why the man spearheading the crusade against the
Globe
’s culture of deceit is about as amoral as they come.

Let’s keep it hypothetical, of course. Let’s not make any black-and-white accusations. But let’s also suppose that a decade ago, just about the time that our libidinous and litigious friend hit the big time, a certain newspaper received a tip concerning his activities in Argentina.

You may remember his adventures in Argentina. They were splashed all over the (quality) papers, featured in BBC documentaries, raised a fortune in donations. You may remember how he had been recording over there (later turned into a documentary, as you may also recall, and responsible for a remarkable resurgence in his popularity) and had been struck by the terrible conditions in which so many children were forced to live.

In the favelas of Buenos Aires, we learned, our sensitive friend found his calling. Those grubby-faced urchins running barefoot through the shanty towns acted upon him in the most profound way. A campaign was formed, awareness was raised, a foundation set up – and, with his famous face earnestly peering out of every promotional bit of bumpf, millions were raised to help drag those kids into something like a better life.

It was a truly wonderful, heart-warming story. And it made the man behind it massive. Global. And you know what else? The whole thing was a sham.

So. Like I say, a certain newspaper received a tip about what was really going on. And what was really going on was this: the whole thing had been set up, planned in advance, the most photogenic urchins selected and kept safe months before he ‘happened to chance upon them’, every heartfelt utterance and exasperated sigh and dewy-eyed expression of regret and despair that we could live in such a cruel and uncaring world carefully scripted and committed to memory. There was a triumvirate of conspirators – a record-company boss with eyes on our boy for a career-resurrecting documentary, a leading charity director with an ends-justifies-the-means mentality and, of course, our friend himself. They had cooked it all up between them. There are emails. One of them even allegedly contains the following: ‘People are bored of Africa. Africa isn’t sexy any more. India’s too dirty and Eastern Europe too ugly. Nobody wants to see any more backwards Romanian orphans – and besides, the music’s shit. Whereas South America… it’s sexy, the samba’s superb, the kids are beautiful, and there’s enough guns and sunshine to keep it all photogenic.’

Cynical, eh? What a cynical so-and-so! And yet, it worked a dream. It showed our man to be both talented and caring. It melted a billion hearts worldwide – and sold almost as many CDs. The documentary shifted more DVDs than could be stocked – both sides of the Atlantic. And, to be fair, it raised a lot of dough for the charities involved.

But that’s not all of it. There are other rumours too. I’m sure you can guess. But I wouldn’t want to go there. Not without proof.

So. Nice chap, eh? No wonder he wants to shut us up.

Anyway! Enough about all this nonsense, Martin. I do keep boring on about work stuff, don’t I? I do keep banging on about newspapers. I’m sure you couldn’t give two figs: I’m sure the intricacies and intimacies of the Premier Westward running schedule and the continuing difficulties with signal boxes in the Taplow area dominate your thoughts, night and day. And quite right too. So they should.

One more thing though, before I go. Do you remember that baby-bonding weekend that sparked such a row last week? The one I either wilfully forgot about or didn’t know about, depending on your point of view? The one I can’t go on? Well, it seems Beth and Sylvie are going anyway. With or without me.

What do I think about that? I guess you’re just going to have to wait until the next delay to find out. I’ve overrun this email enough already. But don’t despair! Something tells me that you probably won’t be holding your breath for too long…

Au revoir
!

Dan

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Re:
20.20 Premier Westward Railways train from London Paddington to Oxford, September 28. Amount of my day wasted: eight minutes. Fellow sufferers: Sauron Flesh Harrower.

Dear Martin

Comrade!
Viva la revolución
!
Forza
insurrection! A new dawn rises, the tattered flag of protest still flies and all is not lost!

What? No, I’m not talking about Sauron Flesh Harrower and the nightly fights for the Dungeons of Azkhabar (or wherever). I’m not even talking about work and the battle for a free press that’s happening right now in the Royal Courts of Justice. I’m talking about the news! The real news! The rebels have stormed the citadels of power – literally. In the dust and the despair and the blitzed-out remains of what was once the capital, through the rubble and the smoke and the abandoned bodies of dead men, the battered remains of the free people’s army of North Africa have broken through the dictator’s last defences.

They’re in, Martin! They’ve taken the Imperial Palace. And the footage… the footage is incredible. It’s just about the worst-quality, most poorly recorded, lowest-production-value recordings I’ve ever seen passed off as any kind of news report. But it’s incredible. Shaky, hand-held, cheap Nokia action; blurry, distorted, out-of-focus satellite-phone coverage; a mess of people running and shouting and firing into the air, sandalled feet and filthy robes, beards and big hats and sudden faces – and a weird soundtrack of part-singing, part-yelling, gunshots and muffled crashes. And back in the studio, grave-faced presenters trying to make head or tail of it, but all agreeing on one thing: it’s the end for the old regime. Unbelievably, incredibly, despite all the odds, freedom looks like it’s won the day.

Except for one thing. There appears to be no sign of the old dictator himself. The main man, the
Grand Fromage
. Where is he?

We’re counting on them finding him by Saturday. Goebbels has been doing his nut about it, he’s not happy with the situation at all. ‘We need closure!’ he’s been screaming at Harry the Dog. ‘We need them to find him and we need it to happen before we go to press! Make it happen! Get on the phone and make it happen now! I want his head on a pole by Saturday afternoon! What’s wrong with these people? How hard can it be? You’ve spent four months liberating the bleeding country and now you go and lose the man in charge? Idiots! Idiots!’

He’s this close to sending one of us over there to go and do the job properly. ‘Anyone with a camera would do,’ he’s been screaming at the picture desk. ‘I can’t use this crap! Find someone with a camera and get them to hold it still and point it in the vague direction of something interesting!’

He’s not exactly filled with revolutionary fervour then, Martin. Not like us.

Or are you? Hang on: when was the last time you gave me your opinion on anything? When was the last time you wrote back to me, Martin? I need to know where you’re at on all this. I need to know why my trains are so screwed up of course (first and foremost, in fact), but I need to know what you think of all this other stuff that’s going on too. And actually, while we’re here, and seeing as I did ask you a letter or two ago, I also need your worldly wise, avuncular advice re the whole Beth situation.

She’s definitely going on this weekend thing on Friday. She’s set on it, unrepentant about it. She said if I can’t be bothered getting my priorities right, then perhaps it’s best I don’t come after all. But there’s no way I can stop her going. So I said something like, it’s only going to be mums there anyway, to which she replied that Mr Blair was going for a start.