There’s the fun idea that if enough journalists descend on a place where nothing is happening to report on it, their mere presence will cause something to happen. The journalists are seen as ruthless and quite happy to make up a story if there isn’t one to be had. And then the revolution happens.įor a book written nearly eighty years ago, I was surprised not only by how funny it was, but also by how relevant it still seems. William would rather stay at home and live his quiet life at Boot Magna, but no one argues with Lord Copper, and after some issues with the passports and luggage, William finds himself in the middle of Africa, not knowing the first thing about foreign reporting. There is a war going on and, while no one’s quite sure what it’s about or who they want to win, every other newspaper is sending a reporter, so the Beast must do the same.

Assuming that this is the Boot in question, Copper and Salter call him in and request he go immediately to East Africa where drama supposedly reigns supreme in the small country of Ishmaelia. However, when the discussion arises between Copper and his assistant Mr Salter, confusion begins. Already working on the Beast is William Boot, a distant relative of John and known only for writing articles about nature and having recently got in trouble with an article about crested grebes.

She offers to put in a word for him with Lord Copper, editor of newspaper The Daily Beast, suggesting that maybe the Lord can get John out of the country and into something a bit more exciting. The story opens with John Boot, a popular novelist, telling his society friend Mrs Stitch that he longs to escape. Scoop is a farce of a novel, reading like an early sitcom and definitely comedic. So, another classic book on the blog – a rarity for me, and my first one this year, but thankfully another one I happened to like. It all seemed to much more wholesome back in the thirties, so let’s go! Besides, in these days of fearmongering, phone hacking, celebrity obsession and Rupert Murdoch, it’s not exactly an area that seems particularly pleasant sometimes. I have since done the odd bit of freelance here and there, but generally I find that it’s not an area that comes naturally to me. “While still a young man, John Courteney Boot had, as his publisher proclaimed, ‘achieved an assured and enviable position in contemporary letters’.”īack in the day, I thought about working in journalism for a bit.

1938 novel by evelyn waugh