The Questing Vole
Baroness Amos's precipitous appointment to the role of International Development Secretary has been the cause of general rejoicing. But from one secluded broom cupboard in a little-trodden corridor of the Welsh Office can be heard still the muffled keening of a little body racked by sobs. Peter Hain — who is already set to have his role in the European Convention bigfooted by Jack Straw — had lusted after the job. He had yearned for it; he had lobbied for it relentlessly; he had, in the watches of the night, rolled around his mouth for practice the thick, Welsh-sounding acronym DFID. Only to be thwarted. He can be reassured at least that it was not his fault. Only that No. 10 had decided that there wasn't a single Welsh member whom they felt they could trust to succeed him as Welsh Secretary.
The Sun newspaper made great show of its probity in handing back the two copies of the top-secret new Ham. Potter book which, it reported, had turned up as if by magic in a field not far from a secure printworks and been handed to the newspaper by a public-spirited reader. J.K. Rowling's publisher Bloomsbury, however, seems to think that there's more to the case than meets the eye, and has named the Sun as co-defendant in a High Court action. It's of course inconceivable that the paper's broomstick-riding editrix Rebekah Wade could have been involved in any sort of skulduggery, but nevertheless News International seems to be taking the case seriously. Not long after it became clear that the publisher was going after the Sun, Bloomsbury's lawyers received a phone call from the public-relations superweasel Matthew Freud pleading with them to let the matter lie. Mr Freud's connection here? He is the consort of Elisabeth Murdoch.
Opening the Atlantic Partnership's conference on the fractious relationship between the old and new worlds this week was Richard Maass, a former adviser to George Bush Sr, Colin Powell's current chief adviser on foreign policy, and one of Washington's very biggest wigs. He made a robust speech, outlining his view of a world in which the US would be able to promote its interests in a 'discretionary' way; Nato's role could adapt to more proactive, 'out-of-area' operations rather than just defending its own members against attack. 'Europe is not going to be the geopolitical centre of
the post-Cold War world,' he added in a cooing tone, 'and that's a good thing.' Questions afterwards turned to the Middle East. One reporter raised the question of domestic pressures on the President. Between 1988 and 1992 — when he lost to Clinton — Bush Sr's share of the Jewish American vote dropped from 32 per cent to 19 per cent, he said, as a consequence of his 'getting tough on Israel'. Haass, sheepish: 'What you may have forgotten is that I was the lead Middle East adviser at the time. I'm principally responsible for the defeat of my boss.'
Kwame Kwei-Armah's new play at the .National Theatre, Elmina's Kitchen, is set in a Yardie-infested Hackney and trailed with the line: 'You step into that arena and you better be able to dance wid death til it mek you dizzy.' A largely black cast certainly makes sense. But is it going too far for Nicholas Hytner, the director of the National, to be pressing his staff to ensure a '60 per cent black' audience on the press preview night?
Crispin Blunt may be rubbish at organising leadership plots but he's brilliant, it turns out, at cricket. The current edition of Wisden (photo on the cover — ugh!) attests on page 579 that the man becomes a very titan when he dons flannels. Last year at Hurlingham he made 106 not out when the Lords and Commons team trounced the Dutch parliament. Only a week later he was back in to bat, scoring 121 in a match against Fleet Street — though, in the way of these things, Fleet Street still won.
Another parliamentarian who has developed a sudden passion for sport is none other than that magnificent physical specimen, the Deputy Prime Minister. In early days, John Prescott's
athletic yearnings would have been crystallised in the faint, longing glances I imagine him casting at the deck quoits as he steered another tray of gin-and-tonics to the side of the on-board pool. But with the run of Dorneywood — his 214-acre grace-and-favour mansion in Buckinghamshire — he has become, I'm told, an absolute fiend for croquet, and has started to invite the odd Honourable Friend down for a pasting on the Dorneywood lawn.
Imentioned the other day the case of Stuart Silverstein, the American amateur anthologist who assembled, edited and published a collection of the 'lost' poems of Dorothy Parker — only to find his work reappearing, comma for comma, as an appendix in Penguin's subsequent Complete Poems. It turned out that Penguin's anthologist had, literally, photocopied his work — as finally came out in a long court battle, at the end of which a US judge upheld Silverstein's copyright. If, as seems imminent, Penguin is ordered to withdraw the book from sale, it will be the first time in its 68-year history that such a thing has happened. This could prove hugely costly, and not just in terms of prestige. The book has now been erased, Cambodia Year Zero-style, from both www.amazon.com and Penguin's US website.
Steak Knife? Stakeknife? I can't be the only one still confused about how the fabled IRA double-agent came by his codename. The dictionaries I consulted seem to indicate that there is no such thing as a `stalcelcnife'. Stake and rice, stake and rider, stake boat, stake-body and stake-driver, stake-net and stake-truck: certainly. Even — shudder — stakeholder. But stakeknife looks to be either a neologism or a misspelling. However, one definition of 'stake' seems apropos: 'A post sharpened at both ends for use in military defensive work.'
Last week I wondered about the rationale behind a gushing Evening Standard item — written by the paper's editor Veronica Wadley and inserted as an 'editor's must' — which opened with the breath-challenging: 'Lady Antonia Fraser was on great form when she gave a very witty speech for literary agent Mike Shaw whose retirement from Curtis Brown was celebrated with a party at Century in Shaftesbury Avenue last night.' A friend explains, 'Mike Shaw is the agent for Tom Bower [Mr Wadley]:
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