Entry 5:

Good morning, Alexander.

I have been dutifully ploughing through all the various front pages this morning, and have turned up many delightful stories. In the Guardian, we have "Labour to Raise Minimum Wage." The Financial Times goes with "Sara Lee in 104 Million Pound Offer for Courtaulds," while the Telegraph has "Prescott To Press for VAT Levy on New Houses." Germane topics all, particularly the Sara Lee story: I always like to keep abreast with what's going on in the world of cake and, of course, the wider world of pastries. Have you tried their frozen coffee cake with the pecans and the frosting? You can get it at some, but not all, of the food emporia in London, if you look in the freezer section. Shove it in the microwave for 30 seconds, smother it with butter, and you will no longer be able to have any sort of discussion at the breakfast table, so full will your mouth be of coffee cake at all times.

But what I would most like to discuss this morning is the story that leads the Express--a paper that, as far as I can tell, is desperately trying to play with the big boys and boost its flagging circulation--called "Labour Turns on Maverick Charles." No, no, it's not about how Charles is titillated by the Labor government. It's the opposite. The gist is this: The Labor government, which once really liked Prince Charles (why? I cannot imagine) has now changed its mind. After listening with increasing alarm to Charles' unwelcome pronouncements on things he has no business discussing, like the Millennium Dome (he hates it) and fox hunting (he loves it, and of course it's a big talking point when he gets together with Camilla the Royal Mistress), the Labor government has decided that on no account should Charles take on any of his aged mother's royal responsibilities when she gets even older than she is now. How old is she? 75? 100? I can't remember. In fact, when the Queen dies, the government would almost be inclined to try the John McCain approach: Prop her up and keep her on the throne. Maybe they've done that already. It's hard to tell.

In any case, the Labor government is worried about the terrifying prospect of Charles' becoming king and spewing out all kinds of nonsense about anything that suddenly strikes his strange little mind. It is so worried, in fact, that none of the top Labor officials quoted in the story will agree to be identified by name by the intrepid reporters, Robert Jobson and Patrick O'Flynn. So we have a series of "senior sources" saying things like "Let's face it, the Prince of Wales brings with him an awful lot of baggage. He seems to want the best of both worlds, taking pot shots at the government from his privileged position at every opportunity," and "he is regarded now as a constitutional time bomb."

My question is: How many of these quotes were from different senior sources, and how many of them were from the same one, being quoted again and again, the ploy disguised to make it seem as if the reporters had actually talked to a lot of different people and done a lot of work, instead of taking dictation from one Charles-hating guy? And how many of these quotes do you think Robert Jobson and Patrick O'Flynn made up themselves?

On the issue of making up quotes, what do you think about the Afghan hostage from the hijacked plane last week who was quoted in the papers today as saying, anonymously, as he landed in the bustling metropolis of Kandahar, Afghanistan, that he was glad to get out of Britain because not only is Britain an "infidel" country, but also "the weather was depressing and the food was awful"? The quote was on the Reuters wire yesterday, and yes, I used it in my story about the hijacking today. But it strikes me as one of those things where the reporter may well have said, "And did you find the weather depressing and the food awful?" to which the Afghan, who hadn't really thought about it much, may well have answered, "Yes."

xxx sarah