off people and it is called people. off the grid is my solution to it all. the daily mail, i was wondering where this was going to come up because did you watch the documentary is celebrating... i've not seen them because i have been away. but i have been very lucky enough to meet both diana princess of wales. 0h, enough to meet both diana princess of wales. oh, yes and what your thoughts? she was extraordinary she was different, she changed the royal family. i think she would be quite horrified to know that this very bad marriage, and it was a very bad marriage, and it was a very bad marriage, but there are millions of people in this country have had a very bad marriage, now comes tumbling out, some of it is true.” don't think she would be horrified, if you read the sunday times magazine today where he talks about how he wrote that book, she knew what she was doing and she did and

i'm glad that finally these two are seeing some i'm glad that finally these two are seeing some comeuppance i'm glad that finally these two are seeing some comeuppance for what happened to that poor child. she was, again18 happened to that poor child. she was, again 18 years old. 19. 19 when they got together she was a child. it was a bad arranged marriage. i am pleased about this that their popularity has hit. it will come back. also, he has done great things in his life. look, which was had not... who has been paired effect, none of us. my feeling is, she was extraordinary, sears have these two wonderful sons who will change the royalfamily wonderful sons who will change the royal family forever. she taught them a lesson. i find it difficult that... them a lesson. i find it difficult that. . . was them a lesson. i find it difficult that... was this conversation goes and carries an here. we're going to say that the zip of the papers makes you join is say that the zip of the papers makes youjoin is in say that the zip of the papers makes you join is in about half an hour and we will continue with the

conversation to find out how ends. coming up next it is meet the other. don't go away. readers of alanjudd's spy stories first met charles thoroughgood when he was in the army, then when he was a trainee in the secret service, but now a few years on, he's become chief of m16. he's top dog, but whitehall doesn't work quite like that. in deep blue, thoroughgood spends almost as much time fighting the bureaucracy around him and his rivals as the people who are trying to steal something important and dangerous. welcome. it might be thought by some people that when you reach the top of the tree in the secret world, you know everything,

you're in charge. but in this book, charles, your hero, discovers that many of the battles he's fighting aren't with the other side or some terrorist group or something, but with people around him. yes. i think that's not peculiar to the secret world either. i think most organisations, maybe even the bbc, you might find you devote a lot of your energies to internecine warfare, or to problems within the organisation which stop you doing what it's there to do. so that is part of charles' dilemma and i think it's in a way easier to write a spy novel if you have things going on on the home front than if you're just fighting, as it were, the war abroad. and that's life particularly in that kind of world because there's so much you can't say, even to fairly close colleagues. i mean that might also be true in the bbc, who knows? i couldn't possibly comment, but that is the way that it works, isn't it? yes, there's a necessary compartmentalisation.

of people in secret organisations tend not to talk about their secrets to other people in the organisation who have different secrets. one of the things about deep blue, and i'm not going to go into the plot because it would ruin it for anyone who hasn't read the book. one of the things about it is that there's a kind of old—fashioned quality to it in a sense that the crises, the threats, the panic doesn't really change with the ages. i mean, there might be different technology. you might be intercepting phone calls in a contemporary way that you couldn't have done before, but the fundamentals are exactly the same. they don't change. no, i think the fundamentals to spying don't change. it's often said to the second oldest profession and essentially, you're dealing with intelligence, with people telling other people secrets, or not telling them secrets, trying to stop them. and there are various ways in which the telling can happen. it can be technical, it can be person to person, or it could be whatever you like, but essentially, you're dealing with the same things.

and, of course, what is not said is often as important as what is said. indeed. what makes charles thoroughgood, your central character, whom we met originally in legacy when he was training to be an officer in m16, what makes him good at hisjob? why did he reach the top? well, i think he, erm, well i'm not always sure he is good at hisjob and it's a bit of an accident, he's reached the top. he never expected to and it was only because of treachery within the higher circles that he did. i think he's good at his job because he's determined to get to the truth of something. i think that's what marks him out and he's not too committed to it. he doesn't live only for that. he is, i hope, a human being. that's a very interesting observation. he's not too committed to it. do you mean that the people who are sometimes best at that kind of thing are people who despite perhaps moments of excitement, moments of, you know, important action, nonetheless keep it in perspective and make it only

as part of their lives? i think the best people do because after all, you're dealing with human beings and if you're not much of a human being yourself, you don't understand other human beings very well. so you need that kind of perspective, or ought to have it anyway. i suspect that anyone reading this book or its predecessors who doesn't know anything about you and perhaps reads a biography that says, a biographical note that says, former soldier and diplomat, might suspect that you have some experience of labouring in the secret vineyards, and you have, haven't you? i've heard that, too. people have said that about me in print and to my face. it's quite interesting that you should raise it. and you've never denied it? i don't think so. in that case, let's talk about the people that you may have reason to know something about and how they behave because you've talked about thoroughgood not letting this dominate his life. why is that a good thing? well, i think you've got

to have a life outside what you do, or you ought to have anyway. if your life is wholly in what you do, you become confined within it and especially if you're working in the secret world, which is, you know, cut off from most other parts of humanity, it's a good idea to have an idea of what the rest of humanity's doing and to see that you are actually only part of a bigger picture. you're not the whole picture. you say cut off from the rest of humanity, which of course is an interesting observation because it is inevitable, and we see this in your novel to the person of thoroughgood and his friends, that you are engaged inevitably in deceit. perhaps benign deceit of family and friends as well as, you know, the other side, whatever it may be at any particular moment. i think, yes. the question of deceit is really very interesting because in a way, you have to be honest. i think for many people in the intelligence professions, honesty is the most important quality and they need to be rigorously honest in their deceit. you deceive the people you should

deceive for the right reasons. you don't deceive just promiscuously or for the wrong reasons, and you have to be very honest with yourself about who you're deceiving and why. promiscuous deceit must be a hazard of the trade though? i imagine it is. i mean, people learn techniques of deceit that could carry over elsewhere if they were dishonest. and perhaps enjoy it a little bit too much. that's a problem, too, isn't it? indeed. i think we all enjoy knowing a secret and it's a form of power and we also enjoy sharing a secret. so it is a hazard, yes. somebody once said to me, i think who's got reason to know about these things, that dealing in the secret world as thoroughgood does, having reached the top particularly, what you're dealing with in the end is the riddle of power. what you're dealing with is trying to work out why someone is doing something, how they're using the power they have

and perhaps how to stop them. yes. i can see what is meant in that. if you apply it to the british system, the british intelligence agencies, for example, do not have a great deal of power in the british state, unlike many other countries where they're much more powerful. the british intelligence agencies essentially advise. they provide information and governments make the decision. so real power lies with whitehall governance, but of course within any organisation there are power structures and of course there's power play within that. why do you enjoy writing about this world ? you write about other things. you've been celebrated for a series of remarkable short novels, some of them almost novellas, and yet you return to this theme. what does it allow you to do as a writer that you enjoy? i think it allows for an element of humour, which i quite like injecting. i mean, not to make them very funny

books, so you could do entirely humorous books about the secret world, but whenever people are trying to be secret, things go wrong. i mean if you arrange to a man with red hair, six foot seven in the nearest bar to the bbc here tonight at six o'clock, you go into that bar and there'd be four them. it's just the nature of things. that is the way life is. yes, so one can bring that out. all carrying the daily telegraph under their left arm. exactly, yes. yeah. yesterday's. what's next? thoroughgood's reached the top. does he survive at the top? can you tell us? well, i haven't decided because each of the thoroughgood spy novels was never written with a successor in mind, so i've always had to juggle what happens to him. i would never have made him chief early on if i thought i was going to go on writing them. and that, of course, is power by another name. yes. yeah, that is power by another name. alanjudd, author of deep blue out in paperback, thank you very much. thank you.

hello, your impression of sunday is driven i suspect by where you spent the day. some got some work done and some got some played on. but, down into the south—west quarter the first signs already of the cloud thickening up an immensely in came the rain. that is mild, moist air coming from the atlantic which will be all over the southern counties of england and wales. stretching towards northern ireland as well. further north and east the sky will bea further north and east the sky will be a bit clearer and some will see temperatures falling away in single figures. what news of monday? well, it is mild, moist air and the cloud will sit right across the moors and tours of the south—west into the hills of wales. and fairly murky fa re hills of wales. and fairly murky fare as well across the midlands and down into the south east. but, get

to the eastern side of the pennines and quite widely across scotland there will be drive fine and sunny starts. there will be some crowd but you will be faring a bit better than folks in northern ireland where it will be a west to the day. that rain keeps on coming. some of it will be quite heavy, the band of whether it gradually eases towards the north, light and patchy in any at all getting across towards the eastern side of the pennines. the eastern borders also staying dry for a good portion of the afternoon. if the sun comes out in the south, and it may do, you could sue the temperatures get into 2a, 25 possibly even 26. tuesday, same combo of front strand use their way up towards the top scotland. rain taking a long time before we see it in the far north. again, in the south or the smelter hair, the potential is there to see a temperature quite easy 26 or 27

degrees. now, here we are again, tuesday to wednesday same low pressure, driving the weather fronts oi’ pressure, driving the weather fronts or trying to into the western side of the british isles. still the mild most air. of the british isles. still the mild mostair. again, of the british isles. still the mild most air. again, if the sun comes out we could see the temperatures around 26. further north that is a disappointing day for any time of the year but especially in august. here we are... this is bbc news. my name is lukwesa burak. the headlines at 11pm: officials confirm that 7—year—old british—australian boy, julian cadman, was among those who died in the barcelona terror attack. police say the terror cell had collected more than 120 gas cannisters in the house which exploded in alcaner. a minute's silence at the nou camp ahead of barcelona's match,

the players wearing shirts with the city's name on their back. bangladesh suffers the worst flooding for 30 years. across south asia, millions of people are affected. we hearfrom the british paramedic injured while trying to help victims of the suspected terrorist attack in finland.