Daily archives: February 5, 2010


I Bet They Did

The Daily Telegraph let slip a most revealing fact:

“the BBC insisted that the play not be uncritical”,

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/7134792/David-Tennant-to-play-former-ambassador-Craig-Murray-in-new-BBC-Radio-4-play.html

The BBC was not insisting that the play be not uncriticial of a New Labour government which agreed to use intelligence from terrible torture in Uzbekistan, and cooperated with torture worldwide in the extraordinary rendition programme.

The BBC was in fact concerned that those facts were not given too much prominence compared to diversionary criticism of me for not being a teetotal monogamist, which is of course much worse than being a warmongering torturing murderous bastard.

Nadira was wondering when the media would stop calling her a lap dancer, when they would start using her married name, or mentioning her acting achievements (including the fact that she plays multiple characters in David Hare’s adaptation of Murder in Samarkand for Radio 4, in four different languages).

The answer I fear is never, not even in the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/feb/02/david-tennant-samarkand-radio-4

nor in the EDP

http://www.edp24.co.uk/content/edp24/news/story.aspx?brand=EDPOnline&category=News&tBrand=EDPOnline&tCategory=xDefault&itemid=NOED02%20Feb%202010%2019%3A32%3A59%3A813

I will say however that I think David Hare had done a tremendous job and produced an excellent play which is both entertaining and profound. As I gather is usual for David, he did a tremendous amount of research, even travelling to Tashkent to interview eye witnesses as well as holding a meeting with the FCO to get their side of the story. I am actually quite relieved that the production does not simply rely on my word for the key events.

Please do publicise the broadcast by whatever means are at your disposal.

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