MMM S02E02A: Book Club, with Rosie Whitter

 

 [ALAN and SIMON in the studio, midway through a call]

ALAN

Okay, and the gun... if the gun was behind him and the book depository was, how far away? 

SIMON

A hundred and eighty feet. 

ALAN

A hundred and eighty feet?

CALLER: BILL

Then the bullet would have reached the president before the sound of the bang. 

ALAN

Well, that makes sense. But circling back to your theory that he was killed by... the Scottish Secret Service? 

SIMON

No, that's the last guy. This is Jews. 

ALAN

Ah, yes, you're saying he was killed by a gang of Jews. 

CALLER: BILL

Spot-on.

ALAN

Okay, and so remind me, this is because... 

CALLER: BILL

Well, let's go back to the Old Testament. If you look at the book of Exodus...

ALAN [interrupting]

I'm going to cut you short there, Bill. I think it's a fantastic, er, theory! In the meantime, if anyone wants to join our spin-off debate on ballistics and field weaponry, please head to the North Norfolk Digital chat room. I'm normally there from 3pm to the wee small hours!

[ALAN presses a JINGLE and immediately leaves the studio]

 

JINGLE

North Norfolk Digital is available anywhere in the world. It's global radio with an Anglian swagger! Bringing Norwich to Nigeria [Nigerian chant] Swafford to Scotland [bagpipes] and Cromer to the Kremlin ["Svenja!", gunshot].

SIMON [panicked without ALAN]

We... well...

ALAN [re-entering the studio, buckling his belt]

It's a chilling thought, though, isn't it? That Cromer might, one day, fall to the Russians. 

SIMON

Sounds like a Frederick Forsyth novel in the making! 

ALAN

Yeah, yeah. The Norfolk Fracture!

SIMON

The Red Peninsula. 

ALAN

Yes, that sounds quite alarming, doesn't it? The seaside town of Cromer has fallen to the Russians.

SIMON

Mmm, all roads to Cromer are now closed. 

ALAN

This is not a drill, repeat, this is not a drill!

SIMON

I'd read it. 

ALAN

I would, I would. Music! There's some kids outside playing snowballs. But they've forgotten to put their Parkas on. It's Coldplay.

[fades up Coldplay]

ALAN

I used to have a Parka. I miss Parkas. 

SIMON

You should buy one, then.

ALAN

I'm going to. 

[cut to black]

ALAN

It's Thursday, which means it's Mid-Thursday Morning Matters Book Club. Or...

JINGLE

Mid-Thursday-Morning Matters Book Club.

ALAN

A virtual get-together where we talk about a book we've read that week. Saul Harris can't be with us. [SIMON stifles a laugh] So in his stead, slash shoes, we have Rosie Whitter.

ROSIE

Hello.

ALAN

Webcam voyeurs may recognise Rosie as our resident wine expert.

ROSIE

I am, indeed.

ALAN

Have you been drinking this morning?

ROSIE

No.

ALAN

A little snifter before you left the house?

ROSIE

No!

ALAN

I don't believe you! Did you bring any wine?

ROSIE

Oh, I do have a bottle with me.

ALAN

That's my girl! Ha ha! That's Rosie Whitter. Joining us on the phone, we have Edith in Rackheath. Hello, Edith.

CALLER: EDITH

Hello.

ALAN

And on email, we're joined by Andrew in Docking. Are you there, Andrew? 

SIMON 

[laptop pings] Andrew says yes.

ALAN

Excellent. And in the studio, I, Partridge. That's the club, let's get to the nub!

ROSIE

Right. Well, I've never hosted a book club quite like this.

ALAN

It's no exaggeration to say that this is the very first multi-platform, radio-based book club broadcast in the whole of East Anglia. 

SIMON

We're dragging book clubs into the 21st century, kicking and screaming!

ROSIE

Sounds painful!

ALAN

Not like an abduction, more like a child who doesn't want to be measured for new shoes. Rosie.

ROSIE

Right. So the book to read this week was Wild Swans by Jung Chang. And I hope you've all managed to finish it.

[ALAN reaches for his book, The Wild Geese by Daniel Carney... until Rosie says Wild Swans and he realises his mistake]

ALAN

Yeah, we have. And if you haven't, just order it off Amazon. 

SIMON

Or a different website that pays its taxes.

ALAN

Come on, come on, it's a good business model. Cheap books, happy shareholders, and the boss is stinking rich. Hats off. 

SIMON

With questionable practices. 

ALAN

Simon, you can't please all the people all the time! That's what China tried to do, and look what happened there. Now you can only have one baby and if it's a girl, tough luck!

ROSIE

Which moves us nicely on to Wild Swans...

ALAN

Does it? Yeah. [to SIMON] Next, you'll be complaining that Amazon make people in their warehouses run too quickly to fetch books. It's not a call centre in Timbuktu! They're students, you can't mistreat students.

ROSIE

All that running around! You could do with a bit of that, Alan. Help you lose a few pounds! [pats ALAN's stomach]

ALAN [forcibly moving ROSIE's hand away]

Off! But Rosie makes a good point. You would slow down deliveries in the short term, but in the long term you tackle one of the biggest killers of our times. 

SIMON

Shipman?

ALAN

Obesity.

SIMON

You could have them running around for books that don't exist. Babysitting by King Herod.

ROSIE

Marriage Guidance by Henry VIII.

ALAN

Or Losing at Squash Gracefully by Anne Diamond! Ha-ha. He-he! So do get in touch if you have any other ideas, because I'm  going to make unlikely book titles today's quality question.

JINGLE [gruff Cockney man]

Oh, that is quality! 

ALAN

Well, it looks like Mummy Pea and Baby Pea have finally pushed Daddy Pea too far. It's the Black-Eyed Peas!

[cut to black]

ALAN [now with a glass of red wine]

Quick clarification, there's been some panic at a care home with listeners worried that Russia has taken over Cromer. That's my fault for making it sound like a news report. The Russians have not taken over Cromer!

SIMON

That we know of!

ALAN

Not- Ah, yes. I mean, they could have infiltrated the council years ago!

SIMON

It would certainly explain their attitude to parking enforcement!

ALAN

Yeah, well, that's more Nazis, isn't it? But it's all evil. It's all evil. Wild Swans, Rosie. It's a long book.

ROSIE

Well, it is substantial. Yes. So Wild Swans follows the lives of three generations of Chinese women. It's a true story of Jung Chang and her mother and her grandmother.

ALAN

Well, that's certainly what I took from it.

ROSIE

Well, that's what it's about!

ALAN

No, I mean, absolutely spot on. Spot on. But let's keep talking.

ROSIE

So, first impressions?

ALAN

Let me stop you and go to Edith. What do you think?

CALLER: EDITH

Three for me.

ALAN

Okay. Anything from Andrew yet, Simon? 

SIMON

No, not yet. But I gave it a three. And I've got a few fours coming in via text. I've got Meredith in Hunstanton, says 4.5... And Cynthia says she would also give it a three.

SIMON

Sorry, I'm not familiar...

ALAN

Out of five, always out of five. So average it out, Simon. And what's the mean score?

SIMON

Done it, it's three-point-six. 

ALAN

There you go! Three point six, not bad! So that was Wild Geese, the fascinating story... 

ROSIE

Swans!

ALAN

...Swans, my mistake, about four generations of Chinese women. 

ROSIE

Three generations

ALAN

Is it?

CALLER: EDITH

It was, it was three.

[SIMON's laptop pings]

ALAN

My mistake. 

SIMON

Andrew's saying two. 

ALAN

What, generations?

SIMON

No, I think that's his score... I think. 

ALAN

Andrew, is that your score or the number of generations of Chinese women you think it is? [to ROSIE] It'll just be a second. [to SIMON] Can you email him? Is that your score or the number of generations of Chinamen? Got to move on!

[cut to black]

ALAN

The time is A-M-one-one. Our thanks to Beverly in King's Lynn, she sent in a beef sponge. She says it's a great way to use up bits of old beef. It's essentially chunks of beef suspended in a kind of matrix of pastry. Sort of hovering in a...

SIMON

Sponge stasis. 

ALAN

Yeah, good name for the dish, actually. Sponge stasis, brackets beef edition. It looks almost as good as last week's chicken drizzle cake. Maybe have some of that later.

JINGLE [Alan's voice, street vernacular]

Partridge! He got game! 

ALAN

Okay, before that, The Book Club. Rosie...

ROSIE

Hi.

ALAN

...Edith...

CALLER: EDITH

Hello

ALAN

...and Andrew.

[laptop pings]

ALAN

We were discussing Wild Swans, a book that garnered an impressive three-point-six! 

SIMON

And Andrew has given the book a two, by the way, and says Edith must have been reading a different book.

CALLER: EDITH

He always does this. My score is nothing to do with him.

ALAN

Right.

CALLER: EDITH

It's a bit pathetic, actually.

ALAN

Oh. Rosie, three point six. A fair score?

ROSIE

Hard to say. At the book club I run, we try to avoid scoring or ranking books.

ALAN

Right, so it's more of a coffee morning?

ROSIE

No, no, no. We do discuss the book, but we focus more on how we thought or felt. Ranking can be a little reductive.

ALAN

Well, it can be, but you might like to know that Wild Swans ranked number two on our book league table.

ROSIE

Oh?

ALAN

Yeah, a nose ahead of Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, but a whisker behind The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. So you split the Browns. 

SIMON

A Brown sandwich.

ALAN

Yeah, it sounds like something Beverly would knock out. Right, Wild Swans. 

ROSIE

Yes.

ALAN

Brian in Dersingham emails to say, "Who on earth wants to read a book about Chinese swans?" 

ROSIE

It's a metaphor. 

ALAN

"...A far better book is The Wild Geese, about a snatch-squad of steel-hard mercenaries who rescue a black king or something from deepest, darkest Africa". [laptop pings] Thanks, Brian. Always good to hear from you! 

[video glitch] 

ALAN

Butter old women?

SIMON

Bitter old woman, I think. Typing too fast. 

ALAN

Yeah, although you can butter up old women. I sometimes butter up old women. [winks to ROSIE]

CALLER: EDITH

Andrew is just a bully who hides behind his laptop. How come he never dares speak on the phone? What's he got to hide?

SIMON

He could be an eight-year-old boy. Child genius. 

ALAN

Yeah, angry because he's been hot-housed by his parents.

ROSIE

Does happen. Denied a childhood.

ALAN

Yeah, Andrew, if that is you, get outside. Climb a few trees. 

SIMON

Pull a few wheelies!

ROSIE

Scuff your knees!

ALAN

Yeah, collect loads of chewing gum wrappers and send off for a free torch. Sorry, Rosie, you were saying?

ROSIE

No, I was just saying, I think the swans is a metaphor for the women.

ALAN

I love metaphors! I really got into them a couple of years ago, and now if I read a title that's too literal, it actually annoys me! I mean, if I went to see Moonraker, I don't want to see James Bond actually raking the moon. Unless he had some sort of industrial equipment, and even then, he's going to need a damn good reason!

ROSIE

I think the wild swans is a strong metaphor. I mean, there's something impassive and hard to read about swans, isn't there? Like the women, they're beautiful, but they're unknowable.

ALAN

They're inscrutable.

ROSIE

That's exactly the right word.

ALAN [pleased]

Is it?

ROSIE

Yes.

ALAN

Thank you. 

SIMON

You couldn't scrute them if you wanted to! 

ALAN

Don't ruin it! Let's have some music. This is Thatcher Pop four-piece Duran Duran. [fades up record and takes a long drink of wine] It's got a smashing flavour!

[cut to black]

ALAN

Still here with book club leader, Rosie Whitter. 

ROSIE

Hello! 

ALAN

I just love reading books. It's brilliant, isn't it?

ROSIE

I couldn't live without it.

ALAN

I couldn't either. My partner, Angela, prefers television. I mean, she will watch literally anything. But if I go up and ask her what she's been watching, she doesn't know. Odd.

ROSIE

Well, it's a good book for me every time. Curl up on the sofa.

SIMON

Yes, take the phone off the hook. 

ALAN

Yeah, maybe a tower of hot-buttered trumpets, sleeping bag tied off around your waist. 

SIMON

Like a giant maggot.

ALAN

Yeah, well, half a maggot, because the other half's a... Warwick University sweatshirt.

ROSIE

And no interruptions.

ALAN

Perhaps the strains of Jean-Michel Jarre haunting you from the music centre. I mean it's on, there's nothing paranormal. And then just plough headlong into Wild Swans. News. 

[off-air] 

ALAN

I did actually plough into a swan many years ago. Yeah, it's the only time I've actually ever heard a swan quack.

[cut to black]

ALAN [now slightly tipsy with a half eaten sponge stasis in front of him, heburps]

Pardon me. It's mid-Thursday... It's mid-morning...It's mid... He does it. 

JINGLE 

Mid Thursday Morning Matters Book Club.

[ALAN continues tucking into the sponge stasis]

ROSIE

So, any final thoughts? What did you take from the book? Alan?

ALAN

I read the book. I thought it was a good book. It's about people, isn't it? Chinese women with small feet. And what's all that about?

ROSIE

Well, it's all explained in the book.

ALAN

Shit, I haven't read the book. I'm sorry. Are you angry?

ROSIE

No! Not at all! We all find some books heavy going. I myself actually gave up on the diary of Anne Frank on my first attempt. I couldn't get through it. 

SIMON

Then again, neither could she.

ALAN

You're angry. Have some beef, swans. 

[ALAN slides the sponge stasis over to ROSIE, cut to black]