Jill McGown

I happen to be a fan of A Question of Sport. (For the benefit of readers outside the UK, AQOS is a thirty-minute, light-hearted sports quiz which is very entertaining even if you're not deeply into sport, and it has been running, with several changes of personnel, for decades. In recent years, there have been two spin-offs, A Question of Pop and A Question of TV.) Watching it one evening, it occurred to me that the format could also be applied to a quiz about books.

Book programmes on British TV are either shown at eleven o'clock at night on a minority channel or not at all. They also tend to take themselves very seriously, something which is unlikely to result in record viewing figures. The QOS format could, I thought, make books fun - and it could be shown at a reasonable hour to a substantial family audience, if it had two teams of authors whose faces were well known to the viewers. Such creatures do exist - a lot of British comedy performers write both fiction and non-fiction, and there are a number of 'celebrity' authors who turn up on various TV programmes. And, of course - if she could have been persuaded to take part - there's J K Rowling.

So I wrote to the Head of Light Entertainment at the BBC, suggesting that they might think of doing this as a special for World Book Day 2002. That was in September of last year. Six weeks later, having received no reply, I wrote asking if they had had time to consider the idea. In January, I rang the BBC switchboard: 'Ah,' they said, 'there's no such thing as the Head of Light Entertainment any more. You want to write to Danielle Lux, Controller, Entertainment Commissioning.' I did think that they might have passed my letters on to Ms Lux, but since they hadn't, and being a pragmatic soul, I wrote to Danielle Lux, enclosing a copy of my original letter. On the 21st of February, having heard nothing at all, I wrote again, saying that I gathered that they didn't care for the suggestion.

And I got a reply! It was from Jane Lush, Controller, Entertainment Commissioning. She didn't get around to writing it until the 13th of March, and I didn't get it until the 15th, but it was a reply. She apologised for the lack of previous replies, pointed out that Danielle Lux had left the Corporation 'eight months ago' and that 'a quiz about books is not what we are looking for in Entertainment', but that I could 'try my luck' elsewhere in the BBC. I wrote back, putting her right about that. I didn't need luck, because I wasn't selling anything - just making a suggestion. I noted that books were not regarded as entertainment by the BBC. And I mentioned that since I got her letter on the day after World Book Day, the whole thing was now pointless.

And then I wrote another letter, this time to Greg Dyke, the Chairman of the BBC, letting him know that their switchboard had advised me to write to Danielle Lux five months after she had left the Corporation, and that mail addressed to former BBC staff was left unanswered. I thought he might want to know about this lack of organisation, and I wrote to him on the grounds that I knew he was still there, and that the letter should reach him. But you will be amazed to hear that I have had no reply.

People outside Britain might not know that any household who has a TV must, by law, buy a TV licence and renew it every year. Failure to do so results in a fine of up to £1000, and persistent failure to pay the fine results, in the end, in a prison sentence - this is serious stuff. And it's even more serious money. On the 2nd of April 2002 the cost of a licence for a colour TV went up from £109 to £112 (around US$160), and approximately 21 million colour TV licences are issued every year. All of that money - our money - goes to the BBC. And since they couldn't, apparently, organise their way out of a wet paper bag, I'm not convinced I trust them with it. Are you?

Now, I do reply to correspondence, but that's about as organised as I get - I freely admit that. The difference between me and the BBC is that I don't demand two billion pounds a year from the British public, or employ fleets of detector vans to catch anyone reading books (whether or not I wrote them) without a licence. But my own personal lack of organisation is why I have to ask you something.

You see, I don't have details of my characters on index cards (real or virtual), with neatly typed résumés showing physical characteristics, dates of birth, likes and dislikes, etc., like real series authors do - I have zip. Nada. Nothing. Organisation is very, very low on my list of attributes. But it's not as low as my real Achilles' heel, the one which makes this lack of organisation even more crucial than it might be. As you may know - particularly if the odd slip has eluded the copy editor and found its way into the published book, I have a dreadful memory for names - it really is so bad that there must be a name for my condition, but if there is, I have, naturally, forgotten it.

And I'm hoping that if you read my books you might be able to help me. The question is this: Have I ever given Judy's mother a first name? I always just think of her as Judy's mum, and I don't remember bestowing a name on her other than Mrs Russell, but it's perfectly possible that I have. So - if somewhere out there I have a reader with a retentive memory who can tell me categorically that I have not given her a name, or can tell me what name I did give her, I will be eternally grateful.

This month's competition is as easy as ABC (or, more accurately, as easy as 123), so why not have a go? If you'd rather see some other sort of competition, let me know; I aim to please. But the prize could be worth having; I checked up on my books on a specialist site the other day, and one of them - I honestly can't remember which - was going for $109. And it wasn't signed, which the prize books will be. I am currently in the middle of having an extension built, largely because of all the books I have to accommodate, and I really, really, want to give away all of the ones with my own name on the spine, so please help me out!

See you next month.

Love,
Jill

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