This is what it is like to work in television

Iain used to keep this quote on his bulletin board in London. It is about the film industry, but applies to television as well.

"The film studio of today is really the Palace of the 16th century. There one sees what Shakespeare saw; the absolute power of the tyrant, the courtiers, the flatterers, the jesters, the cunningly ambitious intriguers. There are fantastically beautiful women, there are incompetent favorites. There are great men who are suddenly disgraced. There is the most insane extravagance and unexpected parsimony over a few pence. There is enormous splendor, which is a sham; and also horrible squalor hidden behind the scenery. There are vast schemes, abandoned because of some caprice. There are secrets which everybody knows and no one speaks of. There are even two or three honest advisers. These are the court fools, who speak the deepest wisdom in puns, lest they should be taken seriously. They grimace, and tear their hair privately, and weep"

From Christopher Isherwood’s Prater Violet