Lunchtime read: Scoop

You start to get a good idea of where this story might be going but it is enjoyable enough to want to stay with it and enjoy the ride. Some of the characters would not seem out of place in a P.G. Wodehouse universe and it makes you wonder just how Britain got by with a generation of vacuous baboons running the place. But then again have you seen some of the Tory front bench now…

Anyway here are the highlights from the rest of chapter three book two

* After the scoop about the revolutionary base being in Laku (a local word that translates as nonsense) the press demand passes to allow them to leave the capital and head off into the country

* Trucks are hired and everyone but Boot, who is told by The Beast he is not to go on the expedition, heads off to waste their time in the jungle leaving William with the chance to make a deeper acquaintance of the German girl Katchen

* She is upset after William tells her that he loves her but brightens up after she thinks of a way to get money out of him by becoming a source of stories for him and promises to being him details for a price from her contacts in government

* William heads back to see his consulate friend who tells him that something is brewing with the Russian and the government but after Hitchcock, the journalist who had the Laku scoop, announced he is heading home and the story is over it looks unlikely William will get a chance to prolong his stay in the country

More tomorrow…