✒The story told by Jeremy Hunt – that his special adviser was leaking information to the Murdochs, giving them every detail of his plans for the BSkyB bid without his knowledge is, clearly, bizarre. But one element of the yarn did ring true. Public relations people usually live in a fantasy world of their own.
Frédéric Michel, the man employed by News Corp to link with Hunt's office, sounded like so many of the PR people I've met. Everything is wildly exaggerated. "X is really on board with us on this" means "I have spoken at a party to X and he didn't reply with a screed of abuse." "We're going to do a media blitz, starting with Newsnight and The One Show" means "I have phoned a junior researcher on both those programmes."
"We've lined up all the key players on this decision" implies "We have emailed several of them."
"Z could not be more enthusiastic" is code for "I took Z for lunch, and when I raised your bid over dessert, he didn't actually gob in my tiramisu." To deceive others, it often helps to first deceive yourself.
✒American roads have a real romance. There isn't a road called Route 66 any more, but the highways that once comprised it cherish the name, and you can stop at any number of Route 66 diners, or filling stations, or even a frozen custard stand – world famous in St Louis – where you can get your licks on Route 66. Nobody sings a plangent tale about the A11, or tells how the girl I adore lives on the B804.
Now Tom Fort – a name new to me – has written a lovely book called The A303: Highway to the Sun (Simon & Schuster, £14.99).
I'm familiar with the A303, which cuts the corner between the M3 and the M5, and is useful if you're heading for Devon or Cornwall, except when the various single carriageway bits are clogged with stationary traffic, which they often are. It's most famous for running by Stonehenge (lots of jams there) but Mr Fort has found scores of other reminders of the past.
He loves to ramble off on stories about the people who have lived near the road, or cooked near the road, or even committed murder on its verges.
The cover shows a young couple, from the 1950s I suppose, him driving with his arm round her, top of the car down and the sea mysteriously visible beyond Stonehenge. And the 1950s were the end of the golden age of motoring. Suddenly the middle classes turned against cars – "a menace that can spoil our civilisation … traffic like a destructive lava welling out from the towns" the experts said, round about the time working class people could afford to drive. So there's a surprise. But at last someone has celebrated the romance of one British road – "I get my glee, on the A303."
✒You get ludicrous results when you allow product placement in dramas on film or television. It might not be so bad if someone on Corrie uses Fairy instead of Finish in their dishwasher, but the news that James Bond has switched from dry martinis to Heineken in the new film is absurd. Do you imagine that Ian Fleming's character would drink a gassy lager instead of a crisp, cold cocktail? What will the final scene of the film be?
Bond has been trussed up next to his latest woman, Zoffany Treat, on a jet owned by the evil Englebert Humperdottle, whose plans for world domination he threatens.
But thanks to the tiny titanium saw Q has inserted in his tooth, Bond can cut through the ropes, grab a gun and shoot the villain. The bullet rips a hole in the fuselage; Bond and Zoffany leap out with a two-person parachute containing a built-in inflatable boat. They land, still in a clinch, as the plane smashes into the sea yards away. The radio crackles to life. It is M. "Double-O Seven, are you all right? If you pull that zip you will uncover the bar. I think a modest celebration is in order."
"Mmm. Mine's a Heineken, the Friday night beer that tastes even better coming back up. And I'll have mine shaken, not stirred." He whirls the can around and cold sticky fizz splatters them both.
Zoffany speaks, shyly. "I'm about to wrap myself round a warm Ginster's pasty!"
"I have never heard it called that before, Miss Treat," says M, coldly. "And I know someone who will relish a bulging packet of Nobby's Nuts," says Bond. Roll closing credits.
✒Talking of guns, I know the Olympics are coming, but security is already a little manic. This week at Waterloo station I saw two policemen wandering about with automatic rifles, each with a curved ammunition clip. Waterloo is one of the busiest railway stations in Europe.
If terrorists do decide to strike, I hope they choose a time between 1 and 5.30 in the morning, otherwise if the police decide to spray the place with rapid fire they'll kill an awful lot of commuters, shoppers, tourists and children.
✒More labels next week. In the meantime I enjoyed these eavesdropped conversations from bookshops.
Penny Jaques was in an Oxford shop where a customer asked for A Woman's Guide To Adultery, a novel by Carol Clewlow. The assistant replied crisply: "Teach yourself books are on the second floor."
Accents can be a problem. Linda Whalley was in a Birmingham store when a man came in asking for books on "powtry".
He was directed to literature. Puzzled, he said: "No powtry – powtry, you know, chickens!"
