the us secretary of state, rex tillerson, says a serious response is needed to the chemical attack in syria — the pentagon the pentagon is outlining military options to the president. china's president xi jinping arrives in florida for his first summit with president trump. north korea and the economy will be high on the agenda. the supreme court, rules against a father, who took his daughter on holiday during the school term without permission. an update on the market numbers for you — here's how london's and frankfurt ended the day. trading close to closing in the united states. noinm naughtie talks to the writer scarlett thomas about her new novel, in meet the author. we all know what it feels like to get lost in a book. in scarlett thomas‘s novel dragon's green she turnsit thomas‘s novel dragon's green she turns it into a story of magic and danger. eight children's quest to make sense of a police turned upside down by a catastrophic event called worldquake. a writer who has had great success with what is called literary fiction, she has had an experience that has changed her as much as any of her characters. welcome. so what did you discover about writing and about your own writing when you brought magic into the equation? eight lot is the answer to that. evelyn in my career i started writing about maths and then i moved onto physics and then botany and no m . onto physics and then botany and no magic! like so many classics of children's fiction you're stepping into another world, whether through a wardrobe or bony rabbits all and in this case by going back to a book as the doorway to some different world, it is obviously something that energises you. and for me, this is part of the whole concept of magic. i think books are magic. i think lots of things are magic but books are definitely magic and when you open the pages and there are a black marks on a white sheet and they can you, they can really do almost anything, it is astonishing. you wrote somewhere in the course of describing your meditation with the categorisation of books and we shouldn't think of literary fiction and children's fiction as being separate things, you also said every children's story, every novel i think you said, is a political text. can you explain that? how long have you got? when you write children's fiction you have to make lots of decisions and especially in a non—realist setting and world building from scratch, so i had to decide, for example, in the otherworldly characters called to there are a lovely big houses and groa ns there are a lovely big houses and groans and everything is a bit pg wodehouse, but how do you maintain that without servants and they kind of feudal situation which i don't believe is right for people to live m, believe is right for people to live in, so! believe is right for people to live in, so i immediately! believe is right for people to live in, so i immediately i have to confront these problems. if the characters brought breakfast only three, who does that and why? is she a servant? we discover more about how that world works. so you have two invent rules and therefore you are saying things about how people live. when i studied politics years and years ago i discovered that politics happens in any situation with limited resources and you have to do decide how to divide things up. it also happens at any fictional situation in which the author has made fundamental things. how difficult did you find it to think about the right rules for your world ? about the right rules for your world? it require the same leaps of imagination. it is plotting a world rather than just a story with any world, so at times it was easy and other times it took me months to come up with solutions, and some of them i are still working on! one of them i are still working on! one of the things i am fascinated by years in the early sections particularly you are talking about life in school in many passages, and the sort of rules and the way that school works, and you clearly have an affection for the kind of discipline, almost, that would get people into learning. there is a very distinct kind of schoolroom that you described. can you tell us how that came about because i am intrigued. you tell us how that came about because i am intriguedlj you tell us how that came about because i am intrigued. i think it is partly a kind of nostalgia. not political nostalgia but an anaesthetic nostalgia, not so much for what my school was like but what books were like when i was at school. we are going back quite far now. the main teacher who actually has your best interests at heart, thatis has your best interests at heart, that is an archetype that we find in a lot of areas. it is a reassuring archetype to you? i think so because i suppose i believe no one is really that mean. even the baddies in the books are all from the world up blushing, by the way. funny, that. they are all a bit too clever for their own good. they do have bad aims in mind. other than that i try to be compassionate towards my character, so the mean old teacher wa nts character, so the mean old teacher wants the children to do well, and she is hilarious. and the heroine of the book, what is your feeling about her? is that a lot of you in higher? their vows. and the idea of the general hugo who sets off on a quest and difficult things happen and she has to keep going, that was important to me when i was writing the book, i had been ill and it was a struggle to get better, and i found reading about other female heroes really inspiring. you have been quite open about the fact that you had for want of a better word we will call it a nervous breakdown, and this is a book that followed that, so it is inevitable that you must feel quite strongly about some of the ideas about in the video was in some other things that come out in this book, that it is notjust a chance collision of atoms, it is something that sprang from your own experience? absolutely. there were some scenes that i wrote that as i wrote them they kind of made me better, so when they go through the forest and she confronts her demons, something in me sort of settled. straightforward metaphorical thing. and ifind straightforward metaphorical thing. and i find especially straightforward metaphorical thing. and ifind especially with children's fiction and magical fiction that you are operating in that more archetypal sort of realm where you are dealing with these deep things, and i am completely better now just in deep things, and i am completely better nowjust in case anybody is wondering. in some ways you want it to deal with them and it strikes me that you have found this form that came to you quite naturally, although there is a lot of hard work and problems to be solved, but the idea of doing it, that once you picked it up you never wanted to let it go, it allowed you that freedom. absolutely, and something about the voice that i was able to access for this book. different from any of your other novels. sort of or more a development of. i think each book is a development of the one that came before and this definitely develops the voice from the seed collectors which is an omniscient, free direct style. is it always useful to have some characters who are always seen from the outside. you don't know what's going on inside their heads. you can have that rule and when you're writing, rules and restrictions are good because they make you work hard and imaginatively to solve problems, but on the other hand, ithink to solve problems, but on the other hand, i think i do go everywhere with this book and it is quite fun. you're suddenly with a villain minor character or are you you're suddenly with a villain minor character oi’ are you zoom you're suddenly with a villain minor character or are you zoom out to this strange narrator who isn't quite bored but is next —— isn't quite bored but is next —— isn't quite god but is next to god. for me, i have found a voice that i didn't let myself use for a long time, or! didn't let myself use for a long time, or ijust didn't try it out and now i have found that it is amazing. i don't think it is necessarily an easy thing to do, but for me it was kind of coming home to my true voice. scarlett thomas, author of dragon's green and many more to come, thank you. thank you. ahead of the weathered an update on all these developments in the last hour. the trump administration's sta nce hour. the trump administration's stance on syria seems to have shifted, ruling out a role for president assad in the future of syria. on that subject, macron, who would like to be the next french president, has said that if that was committed by president assad their nannies to be some is kind of military option. angela merkel has said there are indications that the syrian regime is responsible for that suspected military attack. more of that in the next hour and the arrival of president xi and florida to meet president trump. let's catch up to meet president trump. let's catch up with the weather forecast. it will be warming up over the next few days although today was quite warm in the sunshine, the highest temperature in london, 18 celsius or salt. it didn't look quite like this on sunday for the boat race. blue skies in cumbria and with those sort of sky is the temperature struggled to get into double figures and overnight will stay cloudy across north—west england and northern ireland and western scotland, the result coming in on the breeze over the highlands but for many southern and eastern parts together with eastern scotland will have clear skies and those temperatures would be far away from freezing. warming up be far away from freezing. warming up quickly in the sunshine and the best of the sunshine early on friday. cloud breaking up over wales and the midlands. northern ireland and the midlands. northern ireland and western scotland will stay cloudy so the temperature will be lower. in the sunshine we are going to find the temperature into the mid—teens but if not higher once again. high pollen levels, the code will be high, tree pollen at this time of year. high levels across england and wales. sunshine on saturday and it is really warming up, notjust saturday and it is really warming up, not just across saturday and it is really warming up, notjust across england and wales but sunshine across northern ireland and scotland, the temperature higher as well. if you have a horse in the sweepstake you will be interested in the weather at aintree, a lovely day, no rain at all. high pressure keeping it fine and dry. moving away on the sunday, and dry. moving away on the sunday, a weather front approaching the north—west of the uk and at the same time drawing up more dry and warm airfrom the near time drawing up more dry and warm air from the near continent so with the sunshine the temperature continues to rise on sunday. not everywhere are seeing the sunshine, more cloud across scotland particularly in the west and northern ireland, little cloud coming in over the irish sea so the high temperatures will be across east wales, through the midlands, eastern england and we may find 22 celsius. a lovely day, but the warm weather not lasting much longer. this weather front as it moves southworth will get little in the way of rain but changes the wind direction, that will drive down cooler air, and the temperature to drop by as much as eight celsius. you can get all the latest on that and the 10—day forecast online. welcome to today's outside source, the us government says it has no doubt president assad is responsible for the chemical gas attack on syria earlier this week and it says he should not remain in power. the acts he has taken, there is no role for him to govern the syrian people. the secretary of state was also asked if military in action in syria is an option. we are considering the appropriate response for this chemical weapons attack which violates all previous un resolutions. rex tillerson was part of the american grouping who welcomed president xijinping of china to donald trump ‘s florida resort. the start of the meeting will look at the issues on the

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