Something better to do

On Friday, Peter Mandelson didn’t turn up for Radio 4’s Any Questions and Jonathan Dimbleby wasn’t making excuses for him. Pointing out that Mandelson had cried off on the basis that he had to give a speech in Istanbul Dimbleby also mentioned that we might have caught Peter giving a radio interview the day before in London. He sounded frankly pretty pissed off. Meanwhile, he apologised to the audience.

I can imagine the ‘phone calls, the last minute realisation that Mandelson wasn’t actually going to turn up and then, the urgent conversations about who could fill the space, would they willing and would they actually be free to do this on a Friday evening. And it’s more than just finding someone who can talk and turn up. If that were the case they could probably ship in Ian Paisley or any number of my chums but they want someone with a bit of a name and the balancing political views. And, in this case, someone near to Dublin.

There is a certain contempt for an audience and the hosts in last minute cry offs. A friend tells me that when she lived in Italy and entertained quite a lot her Italian guests would call about 4 o’clock in the afternoon to check out who was coming and then would accept or decline depending on the answer. A refusal at that point, apart from the catering problems tells you quite a lot (including the fact that the cryer off is a hanger-on rather than someone who might be interesting or significant themselves. Real stars always turn up short of the plague).

My own particular no-show is, interestingly, a woman journalist for whom the word ubiquitous was created. Reviewing of the newspapers – she’s your woman on TV or radio; book choices, film reviews, feminist comment, religious or racial opinion she’s up for it. So when I worked for an Oxford institution we invited her to do a 5 o’clock seminar. We asked weeks in advance with the carrot of a clever audience, a genial host world famous in his field, verging on national treasure status and the promise of a decent dinner in college and she accepted.

Time came near, the publicity was out and our advertised speaker was not available by ‘phone. Two days before the event she said she’d be a bit late for the appointment because she had been urgently called to do Pick of the Week but could manage to get up to us about 8.30. Bit of a shame that the college wouldn’t shift the whole of the dinner or that the odds of getting an audience at 8.30 on a Friday night were pretty small, even for her. My colleague who worked at another Oxford Institution told me that invited to give a lecture to follow a reception and dinner she barely managed to get to the podium two minutes before the lecture causing anxiety all round as a disappointed audience waited, not sure if the lecturer would turn up.

Which is why, when I saw this woman advertised as a speaker at a serious college in their politics series of lectures I was interested to know what the ubiquitous one who have to say. Turned out that poor old thing couldn’t make it because of family problems and Charles Kennedy had to do the gig at the last moment. I was much relieved to see her on the Andy Marr’s sofa just a few days later doing the newspapers. Seems the unfortunate woman is fated not to get out of a studio – perhaps she ought to change the habit of a lifetime and just turn down invitations, politely.