date minimising others, saying they date from another time. really saying what he thought was acceptable that he understands is no longer acceptable. it was an acceptable. and a lot of discussion if it was ever acceptable. jo, we will bring things to a close with a slightly different story, a cartoon that ties the two together, at the bottom of the two together, at the bottom of the sunday times. nursery education and the demise of the nursery rhyme. exactly. i'm sure if we had more time we could all show off what nursery rhymes we remember. but the chief inspector of schools as children don't any longer than no old—fashioned nursery rhymes like the owl and the pussycat orjack and jill. they are not being taught in nurseries and schools, which is a great shame because research shows children who can sing a song and noah story off by heart are better equipped for school. the cartoon around this story is, slugs and snails, the proper version is slugs and snails and puppy dogs tails. they say slugs and snails and

grouping and sexual harassment, that's what little boys are made of. that brings us full circle, with a smile but a serious issue as well. thank you very much for now. that is it for the papers. thank you nigel and jo, you'll both be back at 11.30pm for another look at the stories making the news tomorrow. coming up next, it's meet the author. william boyd is as much at home with the short story as the novel. fragmentary glimpses of lives that gleam brightly, collisions of events that take you straight to the heart of things. the dreams of bethany mellmoth is a collection with a novella, surrounded by eight short stories. they have a loosely interlocking theme, and the characters and all aware of their past as they try to find the confidence to look ahead. disordered lives, meat and drink to a writer like william boyd. you've published collections

of short stories before and it strikes me that maybe you find writing a short story, when you're in the middle of a whacking great novel, some kind of release, a change of pace? it that true? yes, i think it is true, because i think different mental gears are engaged when you write a short story as opposed to a novel, and sometimes you get an idea which can't function as a novel but you think would make a perfect short story. the other thing is you can experiment in a short story, in a way you wouldn't do in a novel, because if it all goes terribly wrong, you haven't wasted a year of your life! like a bit of knitting that starts to unravel. so it's a very attractive other thing to do. it's a grand old form with many great practitioners. to participate, from time to time, is really interesting.

you talk about what makes the perfect short story, what does make the perfect short story? well, it's very hard to define. i mean, i think there are seven types of short story. i constructed this taxonomy once, but i think the key one is the chekhovian model. anton chekhov at the end of the 19th century developed this, i suppose you'd call it a slice of life — it doesn't have a beginning, middle or end, itjust presents an episode or a character and it's often very open—ended. i think that now is the dominant type of short story. just a piece of a life presented to the reader. and you like that form. in the eight short stories and the novella, that make up this volume, and the novella has the title of the volume on it and it runs to about 100 pages, you're often concerned with random things. chance happenings and random recollections, one life that's seen backwards or two lives that are seen backwards in one story, that sort of make up a life, so fragments come together. it's obviously an idea

that you enjoy? yes, and i think in the short story you can fragment narrative, you can present, if you like, a series of shards and the reader makes the plot. there's something about the form's generosity, in that you can take a series of random incidents and because it's short, because it's very discreet, it sort of does the work itself. it brings it all together, in the way that a lyric poem might do. let's talk about the central story, which i suppose counts as a novella, 100 pages, and it's about a 24—year—old girl in contemporary london whose life is if not a mess, it's a life that's not really going anywhere. she's sort of floating, she doesn't know quite where the tide is going to take her. it's very much a story of our time, isn't it? yes... probably another reason for writing short stories is you can do the here and now very well and very succinctly.

i wander around london looking, and i see young people and in a way construct short stories for them, and i'm aware of people drifting a lot nowadays, trying out differentjobs trying out different locations, moving, different ambitions, and so i sort of try to distil this contemporary phenomenon of drifting through life. there are some interlocking ideas in these stories, and the odd character who pops up in another story, but they're not really bolted together in any serious way. but this theme of fragments, sort of floating around and then in some magnetic way coming together, is one that pops up quite a lot, and the chance happening, the last story, about a man whose name is mistaken for somebody else's and he ends up in a kind of romp across the highlands. it's an adventure story, but it's all because of a mistake. yes, i think you could say that luck — good luck and bad luck — is a theme that runs through all these stories

and probably runs through all my novels as well, it's something that obsesses me, the way that life can turn so quickly and that personal happiness can be fragmented so suddenly. i always feel inclined to point that out to people — don't take anything for granted, because it can all go horribly wrong very soon. the short story allows you to take these little moments and see where a narrative will turn or a life will turn like that. it's almost like a collection of lyric poetry, isn't it, a collection of individual poems? yes, i think it is. i take great care in the order in which they're set out in the book, just as a poet doesn't just throw the poems down. what thinking goes into that? some of it's very pragmatic. you might not want three first person singular stories together. other ideas are you want to set a tone of voice at the beginning of a collection, to say this is how i see the world and here a ten other examples of it. so it kind of depends

on the stories you have to hand. one of the great things about short collections, of course, is you get this great cataract of characters. you know, there's somebody new coming along every 20 pages, whereas in a novel you have to deal with a gang that you create one way or another and then follow them through. here you can pick someone up, play with them for a bit and put them aside. the man whose life is defined, for example, in one of these short stories by the things he's stolen, largely from friends. many of them rather insignificant things, but none—the—less acts of theft. yes, that's an example of the experiments you can do in a short story. you can take this idea, can you define a life through the things that one person has stolen? well, let's have a go and see if we can. you wouldn't attempt a novel like that. no. and that's what i mean, different sets of mental gears are engaged when you're taking the short form or the long form. it's quite a different form of writing in a way. and there two people in here who look at their lives in reverse. yes.

which, again, is something you can pull off in a 30 page story. yes, exactly, and it doesn't become tedious, and the trope, the conception is actually quite intriguing because the view backwards is always clear and distinct, whereas ahead is a shimmering void of potential. and i think it's fair to say that in this volume that what you're reflecting or suggesting isn't a despair about the world, but quite a bit of wry amusement? yes, i think i am essentially a comic writer — a serious comic writer. do you? i do. i think i see the world as a kind of absurd comedy and so, inevitably as a writer constructing stories are telling stories and telling stories about characters, that point of view filters down and i always quote vladimir nabokov, one of my favourite writers, who said that a good laugh is the best pesticide. i think there's a lot to be said for that. yes, you are, of course, of scottish background. the scottish literary tradition is filled who people who had a much darker conception of what the world did to people and the

vengeance it wreaked on individuals' psychologies. yes, indeed. i assume, even though i was born in africa, my parents are scots, and my formation is entirely scottish. but there is a very strong, ironic, absurdist view of the world which is also very scottish, and very russian interestingly. very chekhovian — nothing makes much sense, so you might as get on with things. and after a long career as a writer, which continues, obviously you're writing as furiously, as seriously as ever. that hasn't cooled at all for you, has it? no. you still get the urge? absolutely. i think sometimes i can't believe my good luck, to be still writing, still having my books published. my first novel was published 35 years ago, it shocks me to say. but no, i never take it for granted.

and, of course, again to quote chekhov, to be a free artist is possibly the best thing you can possibly be on this small planet. william boyd, author of the dreams of bethany mellmoth, thank you very much. hello. the weather story tonight is a tale of two halves, east and west. most of the blustery showers will be across blah —— blustery areas. the wind quite a feature as well. central and eastern areas will see some shelter, largely dry, clear skies and cold. it will be cold pretty much across the board. some cross developing in central and eastern areas by dawn. tomorrow promises to be a better and drier day. spells of sanchon but it will feel cold for all. we start with further showers through the morning

across central and eat western areas. some will treat us over the high ground but they would generally fizzle out as we had through the course of the afternoon. many places staying dry, plenty of sunshine abound. temperatures 6—10d. they will be struggling. as we go toward sunday evening, bonfire night, it looks like the event should be a dry one for most. a blue hue, it is going to be a cold one already, even at this point in the evening. some showers around, dotted around coastal areas mainly. the north, the west and eastern areas. but further inland, it will be dry and cold for most of us, one or two showers around the channel islands as well. as we head further into sunday night, it will turn very cold. you can see the blue colour is developing quite widely across central, northern and eastern areas. temperatures could go down to —54 minus six celsius in one of two places. many of us will be waking up toa places. many of us will be waking up to a bit of mistimed frost. monday,

looks like we will see this ridge of high pressure which brought us the cold weather, and also the light winds ebbing away. this area of low pressure will start to make inroads through the day. we start of a very cold note for monday, but bright with some sunshine, before this weather system starts to push cloud and increasing the chance of rain and increasing the chance of rain and strengthening winds to many western areas, especially in this north—west corner of the country. with it, slightly milder air, 11-13d, with it, slightly milder air, ii—isd, cold one in the south—east with that sunshine. tuesday, a pretty unsettled today. a band of rain will spread its way from west to east and heavy bursts. 0n the upside, a touch milderfor most of us. this is bbc news. i'm rachel schofield. the headlines at 11:00: labour calls for a new and independent system for all parties to tackle claims of sexual harassment at westminster. with two mps — one labour and one conservative — suspended over allegations,

seniorfigures say confidence must be restored. we need to make sure that our youngsters know that we will listen to them, that we will help, that it's not acceptable, and that they don't need to put up with any of it. the prime minister of lebanon steps down, saying that he's in fear of his life. the white house downplays a major report by us government scientists which is at odds with the president's stance on global warming. only half of fixed speed cameras in the uk are actually switched on, according to new data.