If you would like details about bargain holidays a booklet entitled How to see the world for less than 50 p. a Day is available from Radio Active price $25.00 pounds. But now on radio for a look at the sky it's empty Strunk ins takes a whimsical but irreverent gallop through the sound archives and comes back with his trousers off. That sounds like a radio. That the t.v. Adaptation would be terrible next week at the same time the Aardvark begrudgingly joins the south stake ha. That's it for tonight thank you so much for joining us at the Comedy Club My name's Jessica foster kid and do you. Get it and I think we can all agree you've been folly well. Until tomorrow night at 10 o'clock when he should rejoin us don't forget to sign up for me. It's midnight on dates Alan Smith here on for extra where in half an hour Sue Macgregor and her guests will have some ideas for a good read that's a help us 12 that it's the next part of Paul Temple and the Jonathan mystery so prepare for lots of thrills as your radio turns into a wireless and the sound goes into black and white as we join Paul and Steve 1 o'clock. Now though it's time to catch up with Captain jet Morgan and the Discovery crew for the next part of journey into space world in peril the so if I class it from 1956 which was set in the then future of 1972 that you had around that now today the Discovery crew out to ambush the lunar controller there's a spaced out announcer of the day to introduce a. Journey into our space. The b.b.c. Resent yet more broadly in the world in Paris. The on. The in. The air. Jet Mong and Doc mention them here in the main room of the toll lookout normally occupied by the former Luna controller who the earth men of not discovered has been in league with the Martians all the time the controller will Jack ever he was known to lead had a Flynn is it present in another part of the asteroid and as far as the man can tell is on the web the Jetson doc of joined Lenny and Mitch in the time jet sent men made to Evan's room there's a sheet from the bed I'm tatted and just tripped when he laid his plans for escaping from the asteroid in the large scale that he and Doc and examined in the crater known as by 5. Inch of the brain I wanted to take a sphere to get from here to mom right. Question What is the estimated time it would take for a ferry from dive 5 to reach Mars. That is. Where we knew that already on the large scale that's the one I meant what they call them but I haven't a clue in the context any questions about it but I'm sure it would reach then it's well stocked with food and obviously is built for long distance lines and what are you worrying about I want to know how long we can expect to be traveling that's all a lot may depend on it an asteroid like this could easily overtake one of the spheres and I just want to know if we have a chance what if we got away immediately would be nearly 48 hours ahead of any other ship to try to pursue it sounds a long time but a 1000000 miles is a long way assuming well as you would by a faster ship or even an asteroid like this 48 hours start help us much and I wish I could answer them for you know our jet it was pretty tough material but we managed it would know what Mitch and let me will sit here in front of the door with a controller can see them as he comes in you and I will stand at the side of the wall and with the door as he writes them RINGBACK. This sounds like you know about time I know of beginning to think it was never coming back not quite let me and try to look as though we've never left this place he's he's got frank with me and you go Rogers Mitch and let me so this is where you are this is where you are and this is where you stay until the big asteroid get you and then you'll be taken back to Mom all of you where they are that as we know we were looking for myself when we wandered into this place well it makes no difference oh i'm them sooner or later sooner than you thought my right now grabbing Danny Boy time not going. On a chance all right we're going to have a mix and not. That. Get up now. Well Mr Evans How does it feel to be a prisoner yourself you can't get away with this and we have a good try time immediately after the ball that we went through to tell you what what do you hope to gain by this anyway come out of this asteroid and you have a chance 786 will be here in less than 45 all we need to know is how to get hold of some suits and get out of that fear you wouldn't get very far you'll be overtaken long before you reach take that chance now how do we get to that store or find out for yourself this is your last opportunity to tell us I have no intention of telling you. Well Doc but that's based on where we going I think perhaps the controller would like to walk outside on the surface give him time to think things over but we have no soup for him we won't bother with a suit what was that. And that's of course you care to change our mind you wouldn't do it your blood thing so you wouldn't murder him and deliberately murder him what's the life of one man on the freedom of the whole world at the stake All right Dr just sit on. We already do we put the helmet on now you know we went into it in the airlock we may not hear the controller tells us he's willing to cooperate after all still think you're bluffing they come up documents go you know think of them at all I mean yes Mike. Thank you Frank Yes follows down the door on the vision phone and keep in touch Come on Doc. Tony Jet doesn't mean to take him outside he certainly spoke as though he did it with no suit on and atmospheric pressure odds are down to 0 He can't mean it must be a bluff to get over the vision phone Frank see if we can pick him up. Here comes the picture now and I'm the one we want to try it again then they are allowed Jed you know me I met Yes we can does he still think you're bluffing pretty soon learn differently then shot back I at the margin. That warning Mr Evans of course I had it you know what it means to go outside to suit on I most certainly do you still wouldn't call it talk of me take you out there go ahead you can't scare me very well. On a warning coming up. Right. Well this is. This is your last chance cooperate with us or we take you through the airlock Garman get it go very well. 'd show you don't want to change your mind you think I'm a full Captain Morgan You wouldn't hurt anybody you want me to talk this way take him inside doc and put him on the floor because that all. And I talk with a helmet on so you can hear you ask me how much how much can you hear me yeah can you hear me no I can't of course you come and those suits are some proof you can talk to him only through the suits radio that I can do as soon as I put my own meat on then he will be able to talk to me. Through that vision of him and then have to say you can say to him when he relayed to me that I have nothing to say in just a few moments we'll be exhausting the air from this place you know what that means so far as you're concerned you expect me to suffocate you don't have to all you have to do is give me the information out of Quark I didn't do it why not the Martians would punish me send me to work in the underground factories down in the red planet for the rest of my days and on mobs that can be a long long time at least twice the normal life spend on Earth you don't have to stay behind you can come with us back to Earth that. You'll never get back to earth none of you will we'd rather try than stay on this asteroid I'd rather stay here them try then you can for good. Doc which to me. Is up to you and homage to Connor can hear you but he can't get us to go away you're right. Now listen I'm listening so you agree to cooperate and be sent to the underground factories that's what you intended to do without Submit your answers No he says no jet well. Could Talk exhaust the air from some. Contact. While there it goes in 5 minutes at a low begun bluffing it wouldn't exhaust all we had out of here what may your say what interests the icon help you it's more than my life is worth right now your life ain't worth very much now what tipped up a turn of the exhaust all no one excited now but turn it off have to Morgan turn it off now good yellin at him might he County you have about as much air now as you'll find on the top of a mill and it's getting thinner all the time. It's doing it might. Stop Ok All right I'll do anything you say or I can but it he's willing to take along there they're going to turn Charlie Swift in light within a took its power to do anything anything you say and that's more like it I can't talk back ups to. Contact a match yeah you can switch off soon a few moments good Anya Frank said it was well thank goodness it came around I was beginning to think you wouldn't. Want there was hardly any air let out anyway what but the way the controller look he seemed hardly able to breathe that was all imagination yet was bluffing but the controller was convinced the lock was exhausting so he reacted as though it were let's thank our lucky stars he did. Put him in the channel Ok. Aren't you going to untie me now for the moment later perhaps when you prove that you really mean to help us well how do we open that door it's operated by a control on the main panel the red room for from the left do all read controls operate don't hear it and certain doors can only be operated from here which which one the main door that leads into the room where the brain is housed the one that has your shocked yet how do we make it harmless green button above the red Contro just press that good. How do we find our way to that store room it's very complicated how do we find our way. If you called one of the fig crew to meet you at a given place he will guide you to it and bring us back here. And see how much of what you've told us so far is true try opening the door leading down to the Martians room 1st. Working good or image take Doc with your good understand that electrified door and wait and then about the time you reach or there should be a condition Dr waiting to escort you out of the storeroom collect 3 morsels from there and then come back right after Come on up Ok get out of your phone Frank keep your eye on them and if things go wrong let me know once nothing should go wrong that I'd better not. When I get a condition time to meet Mitch and Doc The control is on the left hand panel press and speak. You. Can you hear me Jared going and we've got the suit I can see I have is there anything else before we come back yes in that same room I remember seeing some metal bars Oh yeah they're still here they're what they're for goodness only know I have a good use for them bring half a dozen with you right and I'm back here as quickly as you can sure thing when you get to the main doll even to this place tell the condition time to return to his quarters Roger See you later then. Mr Evans and a few more things I'd like to know well that asteroid was on his way here how does it find us. Homes on those on the radio beam that we're transmitting where the transmitter that's it there. When this asteroid is flying through space how is its course sent do you do it no it's done by remote control radio signals are received which are fed into the brain downstairs and then translated into orders which are given to me verbally and then you pass the orders on to the crew personnel down below That's right so if that brain ceased to function this asteroid would just be adrift in space yes and if the homing be more cut off 786 still find its way here not until it got fairly close and it's still a great whale it must be it's not due to reach here for 44 hours at least just one thing more the big fear in Bay 5 that reach Mars yes it can along with you take why don't you ask the brain one of those big spears called long distance crew ships that one is number 7. Question How long will it take long distance crew ship number 7 to reach Mars from this position. How long do I wait for an answer a few moments. To come if you apply 9. Days and if we leave to be nearly 2 days before anyone is likely to push us why do you wish to go back to Mars anyway I have my reasons and I'd rather not tell you what they are somebody will be after you before you've been gone half an hour. And little bank about the Raiders over there is constantly sending signals to h.q. Down on Mars and to the flag ships of the invasion fleet they know everything that goes on those fears supposed to leave an asteroid without permission this is one time it will. Not Commit a come back. Yet the suits and the metal bars where you want these 4 are they tough possible to bend on the one side for a moment and other suits and everybody put one on What about their own suits and we carry those don't leave them behind their you you told me a mix you had our all mixed up in. There in the next room in the locker go in there let me get them right well if our own suits are complete Why do we need these Martian ones for in case I don't have been damaged to give Frank a hand when you don't he's having trouble sure Hold on Frank that's not the way the the bottom half must go on 1st the on which were there every one of them but on the floor now have to get in this Martian outfit to wear that if you're coming with us you know why I don't like that it's not my style but it on. Everybody dress we're going to put you on no not yet each of you to pick up one of those bonds what for and they may that section in the corner smash it up Oh that lovely quick money that lovely woman will have a whole fleet of asteroids on our tail on this we'd render it useless now wreck it oh right here we go I'm going to work on that vision punched up the rest of us and we're going this little love. With woken him up. That you've never had an emergency like this one right that'll go. Anybody can get they get to work now they're welcome to try and. Say chat up. That's fixed and. Yeah when you're dead you should lie down when Mr Evans that I think about fixes and I hope you had a making contact with that sign you mean you know taking me with you know but you must if I stay here I'll be sent to work in the underground factories and that's what you're going to do with us was not but you can't do this to me home where you just want just might but please time before you leave and if you try to prevent our taking off but nobody knows I'm here I can stop it my gentleman will go out on the surface from the door downstairs and walk across the bay 5 foot on your helmets and test the radio testing Ok it's calling you at me Ok let me back Roger is testing Ok Frank. I want you. To speak. Well. Come back come get me here are you sure you might call it we're just yet oh it's. Just going to listen to what I have to say well if you take me I could be a great help to you and where is the get empty that you want to contact the Martians and tell them exactly where we are and what we're doing I won't I promise you you can lock me up in the spheres rest room. There's no way I can conduct anybody from there the radio is done on the main dick in the flight control room and when we get to Mars if we're caught it'll be as bad for me as it will for you we're all in the same. That I will tell you put on your suit and walk in front of me head for the doll that leads outside. Yes of course. We made our way down the stairs and along the high corridor to the airlock which led out to the asteroid surface one through the airlock we crossed the rugged pitted ground towards the crater known as base 5. As we did so the brilliant sun suddenly appeared above the horizon and lit up the entire landscape in a magnificent or inspiring contrast of white illuminated rocks and long black shadows. We reached day 5 and slowly and carefully climbed down the precipitous wall to the crater floor we made our way across the floor to the Marge sphere pressed the door control and went inside. To offices let me just whatever it was I'm dressed collect suits together take up the topic. For you get them through the door on that central pillar inside right on the top deck you find a lot of it's still suits in there your let some boys and I'll get madder you way. All right I had to go to the restroom is a good one you got to go from there unless I give you permission to show you don't need help this craft quite sharp Frank can tell us all we need to know about that very well I went up stairs until I hear from you how soon before you attempt to take off just some of the boys a couple Martian suits off you still don't trust because I should get up stairs and stay there but. If you need any help don't hesitate to ask my helmet and let you have the rest of the damn thing all. Right it's harder to get out of these suits of armor than it is to get into a prank that according to Penny you were trained as a crew member one of the ships Is that true I don't remember being trend Were you a condition of the time with this cabin is familiar to me as my own room down on earth you know what the controls of war you can handle on both panels of one's course nobody would handle either equally well or yes did I think the 1st thing you do is explain the rest of us how to operate the controls and simplicity itself fine just as soon as the others are ready what's not. For this ship in which have all but it happens to be whether it's round the samo any other object in the center of the system that's clear enough as it creative rails and what think celebration right and I take a look at it in this Kevin was quite slow match but goes on for a long time the highest possible speeds can be achieved with very little discomfort to any of the men you must take out to slow down and why does when I think we know enough to risk a take off Frank you take the main panel back mid shoot take the other the one that sets on cause a 2 minute head of you let me right now let me know soon as you get a picture it's coming now it shows part of the crowd at the summit saw it more rotate it seemed everything is clear out there rotating taking off now as documented take it's only a 1st straight up before we make any attempt to say. Tell if you're rotate it full circle no sign of anybody then let's get off take out Frank and slowly here we go. Nothing happening yet we haven't but when a minute is we have we're moving We'll take you know it's like motion keep it that way Frank slow is fast enough for the moment ride height 6 feet and she's steady as a rock changed to lower a camera let me be able to show coming out well 3 right if wrong Mary because increase the climbing right Frank but take it easy driving right increasing 24 feet very the 35 the morning the the. $95.00 the 2000 to be older than that time. Oh blimey Take It Easy Frank what do you do it I'm sorry let me I slowed down a little too far also you did and he went sure enough to the ceiling so far so good that I said cause you ready Mitch Yeah Dad let me go get me the next 3 picture and I can see now the asteroid surface down below you hear that let me. Yeah I think I'm going to now. Just. I can see the sky and there's my center Atlantis live in the middle the screen doing it. Right. There you're quite sure this thing led to the red planet just piling up on the screen according to Frank us one it just seems too good to be true that. It now turned on the juice and let's see what happens away you go Frank maximum comfortable acceleration let me keep your screen tuned to that asteroid what else would I'll be doing object. It Things don't Ok speed still constant How long before we're close enough to go into orbit around the planet for just a few hours oh things up stairs Frank and me to sleep in the control room someone who's ever lying on his bunk and looking that he wanted things the moment we set foot on mas a whole army of condition times re waiting there to me to be sitting doesn't look forward to falling into motion hands again he has good reason the punishment for falling down on a job is varies of him also he says doing and he certainly felt he'd prefer to go back to earth and face a charge of treason and he doesn't think anyone should ever get bank still he's not going to fall into Martian hands of like a. He's too valuable to us we will have to watch him pretty closely when we make sure he doesn't attempt to escape and he's likely to want to do what he says and I don't think we can believe half of what he says well I watch him dog like a hawk yet come I would if coming were continuous little talk later Dr sure. What's your trouble I'm in no trouble you'd like to look at the telly if you wish how close to it moving fills the whole screen in just a few hours we're making the landing right there on the Mario's trolleys and then we'll touch down alongside the discovery transfer her open up a radio contact Earth and tell them to close down all television stations immediately here and say I'm doing it I know I have to you know what that is up with if they don't well let's hope we can convince some what's more let's hope the discovery is still where we left the Martians that have no use for an antiquated old crate like the discovery and equate it by their standards but West the latest a most curious thing in space travel it is certainly behind the times when it comes to putting around the solar system yeah they will still be listening for us why not we haven't been missing all that long they wouldn't give us up so quickly also easily know even if the invasion that already taken place but it hasn't anything been fixed we would love to. Sound let me always constantly staring at that screen let me take over there's at least another out of the watch to go let me get some rest of thanks Jeff that's nice of you won't get much anyway everybody will be on the. 900. Degrees landings beats go further $700.00 to start your go now. Not a soul in sight anywhere just the discovery in the rectified war nearly. 300. 100 that the g.o.p. Get ready for the Bob 100. Well with them we're on the back now hardly felt a thing nice work Frank 1st class lending are put about by the Me south well let's not waste any time we'll get out of the discovery right away what all of us just know just to then if anything should go wrong there are at least 3 of us still safe for the present at any rate you'll take Let me of course of course and even to get the radio going whatever else we may not do we must contact Well it doesn't look as though you'll have any trouble there's no reception committee out there get your suit let me put it on right yes by keep around the controller dark so he makes no move to contact any of the cronies down here on the right. I mean yeah we can say a thorough. Discovery straight away without requiring current let me but I mean all . Of it is to talk doctrine counts right. Yeah up loud and clear just coming out of the mind on how. Can something wrong dark it's over well of course it is dark open the tell it in you and me just before we were carried off to the asteroid remember how I don't want to matter anyway thanks I have kept this. Part of the lab. Just like coming. Home Oh Clark what you get up to say. What is a jet what's wrong the end it all is open to the air lock you mean it's an air I don't look now but that impossible one door must always be shut the others can't open the lid it is possible yet both of them why don't they just live on that puts paid to take our suits off and still manipulate the right could do it with boxing gloves off let's get into the cabin and see it the way this time. Look. We get up you see what is it this time. Pete psych what's going on over there is the radio out of action action nothing right what was that. Anything Oh please speak script. Everything's got. To come fact. That was Episode 16 of journey into space taking part in this recording where Andrew posed as Jeff Morgan alphabets as limited guy Kingsley pointer as Doc and Don shop as Mitch other parts were played by David Jacobs and until the orchestra was conducted by Van Phillips who also composed the music. Was the. Journey to says was produced. By Charles Thompson. Was. Goodness me with few resources available jet and his crew raced to make radio contact that's when journey into space weld in Peril continues at the same time tomorrow. David colder stars as on are a. Grisly tale in the 7th dimensional for extra while visiting the French town of Vendome he discovers a beautiful but abandoned mansion back at the inn where he stating he finds the locals strangely reluctant to tell him anything about it we came back along the river past the grand breath ash. Yes You know it of course yes I know it seems a pity to vet such a magnificent house get into such a state of disrepair pretty indeed miss you. I don't to be night that well knows it's been a long time since I walked out. I have trouble trying to remember what happened yesterday never mind so many years ago please try you must not ask me things but then you do know something I know nothing nothing at all there's nothing I can tell you. Will be able to uncover the truth the mysterious mansion is available now on b.b.c. Sounds. This is the b.b.c. B.b.c. Radio. Extra. Ok so if you're looking for some ideas of absorbing books you're in the right place as we join Sue Macgregor and her guests now for an edition of a good read from 2009. How again and welcome to the program where we pick through each other's paperbacks today my guests are Angie and we go and Jessie Armstrong Angie came to this country from California back in the seventy's and she says she replaced Chrissie hind on the New Musical Express as resident loud mouth American rock chick she subsequently worked in music and film p.r. She now writes about movies and reviews and regularly on b.b.c. Radio 2 she's also a contributing editor of Empire magazine and she's written the history of the rock album cover as well as sizable chunks of all sorts of film books including a $1001.00 films to See Before You Die Jesse is co-creator and writer with Sam bang in a 5 series of Channel 4 s p which won a Bafta for best sitcom last year he was also a writer with Amanda you Nucci on the thick of it a satirical look at the in a workings of British Government Jess is a contributing editor to The New Statesman But let's start with you Angie you've chosen a sort of American Classic Yes I thought after 8 years of pretending to be Canadian now that it's all right to to say that I'm an American again I thought I'd pick something very American so I think John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley now when Steinbeck who was of course the great American author Pulitzer Prize winner Nobel Laureate and the author most famously of what I still would vote for as the great American novel The Grapes of Wrath late in 1960 when he was approaching 60 he felt that he had become a little bit disconnected from the land so he got a pickup truck and built a had a cabin built on the back of it with a bed a table a bookcase and other necessaries kissed his wife goodbye and Sag Harbor on the East Coast and set off with his elderly large poodle Charlotte lives here on a journey to rediscover his roots and listen to the Voice of America he's the Charlie of the time Charlie is his poodle who is a delightful traveling companion as. That emerges I think he had it well he said it certainly had a vision of himself as a sort of mad Don Quixote character he and indeed he named his camper van Rowson on to after Don Quixote's horse and it's he one of the reasons I picked this was because when it was published in 1962 it became an immediate phenomenal bestseller in the States it went on to become required reading in school when I read it in high school I was immediately filled with a lifelong and as yet unfulfilled yearning to do this trip to follow in his footsteps and I've met so many people in Britain who would also like to drive coast to coast in America and in see the real or seek for the real America and the sort of point of the trip is you know never on the interstate highway here on what we would call be run it's especially in dawdles most lovingly in places where you can confine yourself to small roads like New England but it's a sort of pick arrest journey in which he you know we experience with him things like sharing a bottle of cognac with migrant farm workers in Maine and having Thanksgiving dinner on a Texan oil man's cattle ranch him revisiting the scenes of his youth in California where he's where he's known as one Nieto and always Charlie to share the experience with him it's a great pick a rescue story did you like Jesse had you read it before and already before I think John Steinbeck probably has that thing which is possibly a misfortune of being on. Set every school syllabus is you can consign into that part of your life a bit maybe especially as an English reader and I went back to reading John Steinbeck and with this book and enjoyed it just incredibly And just as myself a sort of feeling that he was this person he read in your adolescence and then not again because it's so humane and fun they and. Interesting about America and why I don't with I'm right in saying this it feels like an old. Biography I mean he did ride on I want to buy the offical things you know this feels like almost the last thing he wrote it wasn't quite what he was in failing health and it was the last major piece he wrote I believe I think it is part memoir because a lot of it he just brings a lot of life wisdom to it he also brings a lot of wonderful curmudgeonly grumpy old man in this to it but I think his voice really comes through and I like whether he's being charmed by by encounters with people or enchanted by the landscape he's also then saw a lot of the passion that went into his earlier writing it's sort of revived in him when he sees things he doesn't like and there are many of them because he had a very long writing career and this is quite different from say a can or a row or Of Mice and Men which he rode to the decades before what did you feel about the sort of purpose of the trip and whether he fulfilled it Jesse he he wanted to find I think whether there was still an American carrot or whether the Americans had a great deal in common whether they lived in Maine or Southern California and in the end he came to a rather. Disappointed conclusion I think it's appealing I think even his disappointment is appealing see so truthful and it is one of those things about he's getting older he's disappointed by things and things changing but you feel the sense of a man who's really trying not to feel disappointed you know he sees trailer parks need always trying to think what's good about this and he has people's dialects changing and becoming more marginalized and he sort of thinks maybe this is good maybe it's maybe this is really about education and so when he thinks about American character you don't feel like he's forcing anything nobody recognizes him never regretted it he sort of he wants that he says at the beginning although whether he really enjoyed not being recognized I don't know I guess there is a sort of. A feeling of a journey towards race you know it doesn't come out until he probably until the end of the book when he gets to the Deep South and he's got a bit depressed by that point you know he talks about being full. Like he's been in a museum looking at too many beautiful pictures and you can almost take any more impressions and it ends with quite depressing stuff in New Orleans and in the South yes I found myself and you thinking gosh this is set in $168.00 come out in $62.00 this is the time of the beginning of civil rights legislation when is he going to get to race and he avoids most of the Deep South but then wow he goes to the easy Ana and boy does he come across a good story well he witnessed firsthand the desegregation of a particular school in New Orleans where which became infamous nationally because a group of white so-called mothers would gather every morning outside the school to shout obscenities and abuse I called Brian leaders the cheerleaders as they were known locally to shout abuse at a small little tiny might of a black girl who had to be escorted to school every morning by federal marshals. I think that that experience shocked him so badly and made him so angry that in his the state given his state of health I think that was kind of the exhausting emotional end of the journey from then on he was just eager to get home as quickly as possible in a way and put that behind him I found that absolutely fascinating because the journalist in him and he was a journalist once came came out and his description of these awful women yelling not just at the little black mite going into the school but the segregation meant that white kids had to go to schools which had been formally black as well and they were yelling at the fathers of little white kids going in as well in there was so much hate it was really quite upsetting Yeah it was upsetting it was one of those things where you feel like you know a lot about the civil rights movement now but then to go back to something with the time and get that the contemporary detail of what it was like to be amongst these cheerleaders and to feel that they themselves had become a spectacle that local people were coming to look at and it's all becoming rather self-perpetuating at those you know those crowds you see on t.v. That a maybe. Not all of them are racist but some of the come to look at the racists no becomes quite quite a horrible mixture but on how I think that the. Feeling of the book is very amiable Absolutely it's a string of many charming anecdotes and I think although it's in some ways it feels like a long time ago it's nearly 50 years a lot of the things he talks about are so rare are even the hot button issues today that the spread of junk that he saw and and the agreeability basic fundamental agreeability of America and the kindness of strangers kindness of strangers it's a great corrective isn't it up to that sort of casual writing off of the red states of middle America and he meets such kind and good people and I think as lot of good travel advice he says he never never had a good dinner or bad breakfast and that's probably still true of a lot of America Absolutely he was becoming very concerned about the consumer isn't in the United States and all this stuff and the the debt try to save our civilization spreading and sprawling through the suburbs and killing off he's also talks a lot about this the death of the small small towns that's something bothers people here a village as are dying in for sake of the sake of these big shopping centers and malls and you can drive for miles and just see junk Yeah well that was prescient of him because by the end of the trip Charlie is pretty much at the end of his life and John Steinbeck as you said didn't know very much longer so it's it's a sad book but a wonderfully worthwhile one we've been talking about Angie's choice Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck and that's in Penguin modern classics at 8 pounds 99 Jesse your book has an American setting but nothing to do with Steinbeck's time you know my choices Lorrimore Birds of America and it's got a very very different feel from the Steinbeck I think there's a bit of common humanity between the writers and you feel that coming through but whereas he's got this this massive ambition to try and describe everything in America I think Lori. You know. If you describe to some of the stories as small you know it's got. It's a book of short short stories exactly it's 12 short stories from written about 10 years ago now and they. Varied in the subject matter I think there is a consistency of tone you find in there they're very funny I think they're quite sad and they are full of sort of treats every page I'd say is a treat of prose you know I think my name is said the thing once about when he's imagining writing he thinks of himself giving out little treats to his readers and I think reading this you feel like every couple of paragraphs you get an aphorism or a observation or an unusual metaphor that sort of is just a little sweetie in the in the prose she's a Midwest and more and more so the setting is pretty much always the Midwest and particularly Wisconsin I think where she lives yeah right the setting for a lot of these short stories in the Midwest often academic 1000000 the characters a setting there is there are all the similarities. But she she does a good turn in satire as well you see sometimes she's painting on a larger canvas and those glimpses of contemporary events the Gulf War It feels like it's around in the background Bosnia's mentioned several times which is. From around the time the stories were written I read it 1st 10 years ago and having recommended I went back to reading it with a bit of trepidation will it be as good as I remember it and I think it was a you know I'm quite evangelical about it I give it a lot of as a birthday and Christmas present and are really love love the stories and love writing and you know I think she's a she's better known in the United States than she is well I'm indebted to Jessie for introducing me to her I know a couple of people who are sort of obsessed with the writing but I hadn't actually sat down to read it before and I do love collections of short stories although I wouldn't call this an easy read on the bus into town I think you need to sit and really for. Because on this I found that her voice is so distinctive and it's so original and her ways of expressing herself are so somehow so extraordinary I had to go back and re read a passage again and I find it very you know it's very dense with emotion and and turns of phrase that you know that are unfamiliar I was I was concerned because I'd heard that she was mordantly funny and very sardonic and very witty and the 1st few stories I thought were so painful so poignant but not a lot of laughs and I thought and as the themes started developing of aloneness and disconnectedness I was getting quite concerned in that about who a few stories in we get to Shiraz the story of the the family Christmas dinner or Christmas gathering and I finally started laughing and I was so pleased to the main character to race is actually happy with her and I suppose she quite likes her husband at the end of the story I think was short stories Ok are challenging particularly a collection of them to read because the author is like jumping in the deep end isn't it and having just a short length to swim in Iraq again and in that those few pages the author has to engage you in the characters in the situation you come straight into the middle of a situation and a good short story writer like Lorrie Moore engages you instantly with the characters who I agree on g.i. It took a couple of stories for me to get my self into Stahl And I think it's a bit like speed dating really you know have to make you very much again you're on to the next one and each each of plots if you can call them that contains enough material within a few pages for a full length novel I would have thought do you think yes it's interesting that and it's interesting I think that story that you mention is probably we should warn the only short story with a conventionally happy ending. There aren't many well though they didn't all make me want to go slash my wrists I thought the last one to reflect mother something I felt something. Exuberant at the end of that whatever if it was just the steering said Hope. My favorite story or most of all which was the saddest one towards the end the title actually has the words peed on in it and I thought what is this and then you realize that's that's what doctors call pediatric oncology and the story which is called people like that are the only people here and then comes Pete on is about a group of parents visiting their terminally ill children in the hospital it is a completely shattering story but but it's in the end there is actually a human that this huge insight and I thought it was a must a fully written constructed story and now the one I loved which is much funnier is about a mother and daughter who fly to Dublin to do the car trip and the blood is about is there no my guess gets stuck because I've never tried to kiss the Blarney Stone but you know but you have to lean back and pray that you're not going to fall and poor mother gets get stuck and has and shows the top of her panties as she's pulled off. I think I think the tone of the stories or at least the subject matter gets if anything darker through the book there are those ones about children come towards the end of the book and I think the one that you mentioned Sue is probably the one that most readers will remember most vividly it sort of harrowing but I think that's what I admire most of all is the ability to recreate life like that the way the hilarious. Hilarious but funny and painfully funny moments come in the midst of tragedy and I think probably writing works best with with the dark backgrounds that she has in some of those later stories almost like the sparkling jewels of prose and wit need a bit of a black tragic background to really show up while I found her I'm like anyone else quite I the one thing that I thought she was a bit Jane Austin asked in her ability to concentrate on seemingly Monday in little details the way she can. Bring detail into relief was quite wonderful I'd say all of this you know small little things the dialogue is wonderful and I respect Jesse who who writes is scripts would have would have been particular impressed by that there's a there's another lovely story about 2 guys they turn out to be lovers middle aged one is Irish and one is Jewish and one of them one of the 2 of them is blind so they're one times the driving just driving around for 2 weeks staying in cheap hotels and ending up watching a display of trying ducks in the fountain in the courtyard of one of these had nothing much happens but it is so funny it is lawful loud funny where you know I enjoy the dialogue was a bit in the story called Beautiful great about a professor having a relationship with x. People much younger woman and built an academic in his young lover she's unhappy after they've gone to a New Year's Eve party and she says I mean I'm romantic and passionate I believe if you're in love that's enough I believe love love conquers all Bill not sympathetically from a great distance but I don't want to get into one of these people one sided patched together relationships no matter how much I care for you whatever happened to love conquers all just 4 seconds ago. It was I'm older now she says you kids you grow up fast I suppose if there is a thread it's women's slightly imperiled and certainly children but women have been let down. And also in general people loners bookish types of people maybe marooned in the Midwest who don't get on as well that Steinbeck rub along with folk she's not I wrote a great robbery along with people who feel that all relationships are prickly she sort of picks at the fault characters and I don't know whether you could say this of the author but you feel this is somebody who is always looking to find the fault and can't help sort of putting her tongue into the rotten tooth and seeing what's inside there some people can't bear the idea of reading a collection of short. Stories but you you say you you feel very special about this one and you handed out to people at random. Have you have you converted them I don't think I have on the whole I think you 2 might be you or you sound like you're positive but I don't think I got as many positive responses I've always thought I would I thought from the beginning that I admired her very much perhaps I admired her more than I enjoyed her but as I got into it the more I began to enjoy it and I look forward to rereading some of them with great pleasure but I don't understand that exist shapely well constructed short story you can have all the satisfaction when you reach the end as you would if you'd read a sort of Ok 400 page novel we've been talking about a collection of short stories by the American writer a lorry more called Birds of America it's from Faber and 8 pounds 99 you're listening to a good read with my guests Angie Erica and Jesse Armstrong now my book is not American although there is quite a large section of it which is set in the United States it's William Boyd's restless and it's a sort of spies story in the in the carrying. John in a way very typically Boyd cracking narrative has you turning the page is quite spare prose and there are twin narratives here one narrative takes place in that hot sun famous hot summer of 176 when the writer who's called Ruth Gilmartin who's a single mother and a student making a bit of extra money teaching English to foreigners introduces us to herself and to her mother who is Sally Gilmartin who lives in a Cotswold village nearby Now Ruth has just discovered that her mother is not really called Sally Gilmartin the tall but she was born Dellec to Skye as she's a Russian who was employed as a spy by British intelligence joining the war ever who's now I suppose in her seventy's late seventy's in the 1970 s. Is writing her. Memoirs and she's very frightened and disturbed by something or someone in her past but of course this shatters Ruth's world pretty radically to find out that a mother isn't the person she thought she was the 2nd narrative is Eva's story and we're back in the war we followed her into the United States in 1941 as and I didn't know this is very much based on truth as one of the British agents trying to spread and Nazi propaganda before America and to the war cost Posada changed all that. It's a perilous time for a of up and she almost loses her life she's betrayed and then we move back to the present and find that the 2 narratives kind of joined at the end in Iraq exciting way and she wanted to make it well I couldn't put it down I thought it really it was the proverbial page turner and what we see there's a wonderful smugness about reading William Boyd because it is a riff that you don't you can tell a ripping yarn but you feel that it has literary creds so you don't have to be embarrassed reading it in come to look a like you what sort of things you pick up in airports I also I thought was very clever if him that almost from the beginning I under the influence of Eva's narrative of 193-9940 her training in espionage I began to suspect every character in the book every time a new foreign language didn't walk in the door a loose life I was convinced they were really going to pretend to be a terrorist or something and so I think there are a lot of red herrings and it actually that don't don't don't amount to much in the end but I really enjoyed it what about you Jesse Likewise it was quite literally a good read I speeded up as I got to the end almost had a sort of jacket cover quote with the late night turning the pages and as you say the stuff about the b.s. See the British security coordination this large very large organization it sounds like in America operating with Roosevelt. Tacit. Acceptance but really sometimes going rather beyond their brief you know almost you could say subverting the democracy by pushing pushing pushing for from era to come into the war it's a it's a great they're leaving sort of false maps and false letters it was all done reasonably subtly that doesn't sound very subtle but it had to be down the suppler because Roosevelt who I think was have had America not into the war was a was coming out for election and he couldn't really with so many people who didn't want to go to war use that as one of his platforms so it all had to be done I thought that was a rather quietly and I thought that was an absolutely fascinating historical period to revisit apart from the exciting story well I'm just I'm surprised it hasn't turned into a film yet because there must be 100 actresses who would adore to play Ava it's got lashings of sex and paranoia and power and intrigue in all its disguises and accents wonderful stuff. The novel and we always like to sort of find common threads or something that is the essence of a book on this program fwe can do you think it's about identity and I just wondered whether the Restless of that title I was thinking now who does that refer to and I came to lose it must be the mother who had to change her identity about 4 times there wasn't just the original Russian one becoming a Brit but there were other identities she took up in America and of course when we meet her in more or less contemporary times she still feels that she's in danger she's the restless character I think isn't she and for me it was the central theme was maybe about relationships the relationship between mother and daughter which is you know. Broken violently at the beginning by the discovery that a mother isn't who she thought she was and then the relationship between Eva and she has a relationship with her handler which is. For an ambivalent relationship you know they there's a great scene where he leaves the room after they've made love and she goes through his wallet as a matter of course and she fully expects him to do the same thing and it's very believable and maybe even the relationship between the u.k. And America these pieces theoretically great allies but there are there are these floors full of spies. In the country to come in you know it's very nice gray area Yes Did you feel that the the mothers character was moved filled out by William Boyd perhaps than the daughter the daughter was sympathetic with her plight and her condition and have disappointment in a way and in her mother not having told ever about this I felt I knew much more about and I felt this definitely Eva's story and the daughter was served as something of a device but I thought it was interesting that the daughter starts thinking under the influence of reading about her mother's real life and going through this terribly depressed patch of thinking that we you can never know another person she starts being suspicious of of all sorts of people around her and then she emerges from that at the end and you can you get this I got the sense she was going to get on with life in a rather healthy way while her mother was going to forever be twitching the curtains expecting expecting the worst and the daughter was in rejecting that was the more positive character and indeed although there is a cracking zone a mosque ing at the end when not left comfortable at the end because the mother is still twitching isn't it on the very front to say I always always a paranoid you know who can never trust anybody but me and she has every reason not to and William Boyd has written so well about English and this hasn't he do you feel Jesse that that's one of his strengths even in this book which is. Which takes you to I've not been to the United States are you in stories of the any of the not yet a of more than a William board for I'd like to read more after reading this the Englishness in this. It's interesting that you get the strong favor of the seventy's in this language school and sort of somebody is somebody knows somebody who's in the bottom line off gag exactly you know and you know and it's Dr you keep on thinking that way about myself going to come into this is this is this is that is an Iranian student is what we're going to is the Shah going to appear that it's quite tantalizing not entirely satisfying that those threads don't come to anything I think they're very good red herrings as I have said. But you could get I don't know what Hitchcock used to call the McGuffin. Of all of those. We've been talking about a recent novel by William Boyd it's called Restless and it's published by Bloomsbury at 7 pounds 99 the other 2 books we discussed were just his choice Birds of America by Laurie more and that's from Faber in paperback at 8 pounds 99 and Angie's choice was John Steinbeck's travels with Charlie Charlie being his chocolate colored poodle and that's from Penguin modern classics at 8 pounds 99 My thanks to my 2 guests today Angie Ara go and Jessie Armstrong a good read will be back next week at the same time so hope you can join me then tell their goodbye. A good read was presented by c. McGregor on the producer was sorry Davis looking ahead to the legendary Hollywood crew not being Crosby will be talking about his love of nature of the outdoor life with Derek Jones in sounds natural that's at this time tomorrow. B.b.c. Radio 4 New York going on Iraq. Hello ates want to talk candidates Alan Smith here on for extra where in half an hour we'll hear the story of the tiny opinionated No we who became the toast of the 1920 s. Hollywood if I had legendary Masange techniques of all things sounds intriguing the story of spent Sylvia on the Hollywood trims to help us one and then with the next part of Breakfast at Tiffany's That's at 2 o'clock. Ok so let's get started with the next thrilling chapter of the Jonathan mystery from the man of the moment pole Temple who's about to find out the truth about Richard Oh and by the way is a real announcer to introduce it from London we present the Francis dub Ridge serial Paul Temple and the Jonathan mystery. If you sued for the encounter. We arrived about. We came down to see Mrs Gallagher That's Richard splendid Yes I know gone this is very well she telephoned us this morning to put you seemed rather what did what about exactly Well apparently I've got to write here which is this morning and she's got over it and it by mistake what sort of a letter well that's just the point it doesn't seem important doesn't see much only important and yet well it's from that friend of Richard's The one no one seems to know anything about Jonathan Jonathan Yes Mary I see it. Like that Dr but. I mean Mr Thank you Mrs damp. I had a hunch you'd be here when I wanted Mr Temple to see the letter I but he's got to seem to think it was important how going to be important is just a letter wishing a guy happy birthday What does it say. Dear Richard this is just to wish you a Happy Birthday I hope to see you at the end of the week regards Jonathan does that strike you as being a very mysterious letter you say Miss is going to open it by mistake that's right she was in quite a flap about it when did you see it as evening Helen suddenly got into I had the ridge of my trying to contact Mrs Gallagher she's made the old girl promise that if he does she'll get in touch with us straight away and I see look it seems to me there's a perfectly simple explanation for all this Jonathan business want is the simple explanation Jonathan is a friend of Richard's.