Read Online The View from Mount Dog by James Hamilton-Paterson - Free Book Online

famous voice. In a moment, Carney thought, he’ll be asking me to guess which of all the various signed photographs, awards, little silver television cameras on little silver tripods on display around the room had given him the most pride and pleasure, and the answer will undoubtedly be the dented cup over the door, ‘Victor Ludorum 1955’, which he had won when he was thirteen despite having just recovered from chickenpox.
    ‘… the hack writers, the ghosted-autobiography writers, the chat-show hosts, the groupies, the fan-club organisers, the exclusivity-rights lawyers, the city-hall lobbyists bidding to host the Olympics in twenty diddledy-three, the airlines who fly the Olympic teams about, the manufacturers of the nose-hair tweezers used by the pilot of the sodding plane which carried the victorious nation’s team back home…. You name it, Carney. And every one of those bastards is living and jet-setting and wining and dining and making his fortune on the backs of a few hundred people out there on the tracks and courts and pools, sweating their wretched guts out and praying the latest dope-test techniques are still a year behind what their managers are giving them. Shee … it !’
    ‘Heavens,’ said Carney mildly with what he hoped was an irritating other-worldliness. ‘I never thought it was all such a – well, racket. So what you’re saying is …?’
    ‘What I’m saying’ – Bob Struthers brought into his voice a fine edge of patience – ‘is that it’s next to impossible for someone like your guy to bull his way to the top in one easy move because it does a lot of people out of their cut. Once he’s a star, of course, they’ll be fighting over his body. But until someone’s identifiably a biggie with the prospect of being packaged and sold for real money the industry likes its athletes to be quite conventional and work their way up in time-honoured fashion. Life, Carney,’ explained Bob Struthers, ‘is a simple knock-out competition and you’d better believe it. You win the eliminator and move on to the qualifying rounds, and then you win and win and win and suddenly it’s the quarter finals, then the semifinalsand then by the Grace of Whatever it’s the bloody Final and you’re there…. Or not, depending. This isn’t hack philosophy, Carney. It’s what I see and know, every day, everywhere. Do you know what my proudest possession is in the whole of this room?’
    ‘No?’
    ‘That,’ said Bob Struthers, flicking the silver television camera on its silver tripod which stood on the desk before him, ‘because it’s this year’s. And that makes it better than last year’s and the year before’s.’
    ‘Well,’ said Carney, gathering his legs under him into an about-to-leave posture, ‘you’ve been very helpful, Bob. I really appreciate it.’
    ‘Just filling in some of the background for you, Carney; I haven’t finished yet. Now, what effect does all this have on the ordinary man in the street who, whenever he turns his TV on, hears and sees nothing but stars – names he knows as well as his own, faces he’s more familiar with than those of his own family? I’ll tell you. It’s made him a fantasist …. By the way, Carney, this is a pet theory of mine.’
    ‘You certainly seem to like your subject.’
    ‘I love it, Carney, I really love it. Now, it’s made him a fantasist because of the nature of publicity itself. My theory is that there are no real stars – very few, at any rate. What there is is star dom . It’s the top spot in whatever you like – sport, films, er … comedy’ – he nodded benignly towards his guest – ‘and the top spot is occupied by one of a constant stream of winners who come up, get that spotlight of attention full on them for a year or two, then move off into outer darkness. A lot of the people who find themselves briefly at the top are pretty unmemorable, frankly, and this is where your man-in-the-street fantasist comes in. He looks at