PRESCOTT PHONE HACK

The reason piggy 2-jags prescott is so up in arms about his alleged hacking is that we all have something to hide and "Lord" Prescott knows that if his phone was being tapped, someone has a load of shit on him.

When I was growing up in Hong Kong, the dullest civil servant was a man I won't name because I am back in touch with his daughter with whom I went to the Peak School.

This was a man who, among grey fonctionnaires, gave a new name to dullness.

Even we children thought so, and if you want to know a man's true character, ask the invisible kids who frolic around as the family arguments rage and the boss calls with a final notice and the bailiff taps on the door. Les enfants know it all and if m'sieur meets his fancy lady under the pose of walking the dog, they see it too from their perch in the tree.

Alors, we have Mister Blandissimo Incorruptibilimo ... it's April Fool time, tomorrow's grey beards are young and after fun.

No use sending the telegram to anyone because they have too much to hide they'd just laugh and open another pink gin.

They send the 'gramme to The Greyest of Grey.

"All is known"

No one actually knew what happened next because he about whom all was known left the colony by the first sampan out of Aberdeen.

I never doubted the story: a) it came from dad who didnt tell 'stories' but did delight in the Maughamish vagaries of human nature b) I heard it in various versions from those who weren't there but who could pick up fag ends.

Back to Coulson, even i remember typescripts at publishers i worked at having the excise truthful but inconvenient revelations. No one batted an eyelid, part of the job - a truthfully researched passage couldnt see light of day.

The Coulson character appears in a number of mss awaiting editing/approving/checking with My Learnèd Friend/and so forth. We all read them and tried to remember to keep schtoom. The difficulty in reading an uncut typescript for possible approval and passing upwards to the editorial toffs, is that you get the full story and forget later which bit to erase from memoire.

Remember the end of 'Cinema Paradiso'? The first time i saw that moving scene, my first instinct was to play back in my mind all the excised exercising bowdlerised edited passages of all the mss we'd had pass thru our hands and were still lying about on the editorial depts floor. If I'd been a smart reporter I'd have signed on as garbage collector for Bedford Square/Soho. Believe me, you'd've got a gold mine.

Enuff said.