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monitor and welcomed our presence at an historic occasion, which, given what odd things history proved it could do lately, was
probably true.
    Ros nudged me in the upper thigh. ‘Ready, steady, here he is,’ she said. And there – right in the middle of the main monitor – I was, just like Mrs Dalloway at her party.
Except somehow I seemed to be not quite I, but some terrible yet oddly accurate simulacrum. Thanks to modern technology I had become a long green banana, rocking on my heels and talking
interminable tosh. My body was transformed, my thoughts rendered outrageous, my manner gross; nothing was quite as I understood it to be in so-called real life. ‘Well, what did you
think?’ asked Ros, when the vision had passed away. ‘It’s a stand-in,’ I said. ‘No, it’s you,’ said Ros. ‘You were right then,’ I said,
‘I
was
worse than Howard Jacobson.’ More interviews followed: John Mortimer, Ben Elton, Gore Vidal. I was worse than all of them. Whatever came on over the next half-hour, I was
worse than. ‘Why use it?’ I asked, ‘Why not leave it on the cutting-room floor?’ ‘Because tomorrow you’ll be the one thing people remember,’ said Ros,
‘Who was that little prick at the Booker?’ ‘I don’t want to go down in history as the little prick at the Booker,’ I said. ‘Then you shouldn’t have been
such a little prick in the first place,’ said Ros kindly.
    Onscreen the greatest night in the life of modern literature continued. There were dramatized extracts from the six chosen novels, all shot in the same children’s sandpit off
Shepherd’s Bush Green which, decked out with a beach umbrella or two, easily stood in for Deauville in
belle époque
1913. There was a studio discussion with Germaine Greer and
others, all of whom I was decidedly worse than. The chairman of the Booker company rose and introduced the chairman of the Booker judges. He took the microphone, briefly dismissed the state of the
novel (though more effectively than I had), then went on to discuss the works of Tom Paine, the celebrated Thetford staymaker and political radical. This led him to some long reflections on the
American War of Independence, on which he was plainly an expert. It was as I sat there, hoping that some crisis would occur that would drive my own contribution into insignificance, that I realized
there was deep tension in the scanner. ‘Come on, for Christ’s sake,’ Ros was saying, ‘Only three seconds of this programme is worth anything, and we’re going to miss
it.’ ‘Which three seconds?’ I asked. ‘The name of the winner,’ said Ros. ‘Fifty seconds left,’ said the engineer. ‘The silly twat, the silly twat,
he’s not going to get it in,’ cried Ros. ‘Say it, say it, you great fat dickhead,’ shouted the crew in the scanner. ‘Somebody kick him in the Tom Paines, gag him,
knock him over,’ said Ros feistily into the microphone.
    Suddenly, prodded violently from behind, the chairman halted, midway through the Battle of Saratoga, and gulped the name of the winning author. The oldest, untidiest and baggiest of the bag
ladies rose up bewildered, walked off in the wrong direction, was reprogrammed by her Fiona, and found her way to the platform. The chairman kissed her rather cautiously and handed her a generous
cheque. ‘Turn to camera and smile, dear,’ murmured Ros. The winner turned to camera, gushed copious tears, and thanked her publisher and her mother. ‘Her
mother
!’
cried Ros, ‘I suppose she’s sitting at home writing next year’s winner.’ ‘There we are,’ said the presenter breathlessly, ‘One more writer twenty thousand
pounds the richer. What will she do with the money?’ ‘Buy a motorbike,’ said Ros sourly, ‘Go on, get over there and ask her.’ ‘Out of time,’ said the
engineer. ‘And there we have it,’ said the presenter, realizing that the Nine O’Clock News was pressing at her back, ‘Another great day for