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Your support makes all the difference.* The real-life adventure story that led to the arrest of Sir Mark Thatcher is in the process of being turned into a BBC film by the satirist John Fortune.
* The real-life adventure story that led to the arrest of Sir Mark Thatcher is in the process of being turned into a BBC film by the satirist John Fortune.
In a project commissioned by the Beeb's factual drama department, Fortune is writing a docudrama about Simon Mann, the Old Etonian mercenary imprisoned in Zimbabwe after being convicted of trying to buy arms for an alleged coup in Equatorial Guinea.
The "mildly satirical" film will centre on the personal fate of Mann, but will be of interest to the many high-profile individuals who have been linked to the plot. It will be broadcast next autumn, after the scheduled trial of Thatcher, right.
"This was in many ways a very English coup," says Fortune. "You've got an Old Etonian, who has a history of working with mercenaries in Angola and Sierra Leone, but who was now very comfortably off. It seems mad for him to have got mixed up in this at this stage in his life.
"He took what seems like an enormous risk. I will probably start by looking at him in prison, where he is for the next seven years, wondering how on earth it happened, and where it all went wrong."
Fortune, best known for his work on Bremner, Bird and Fortune, recently went on a fact-finding mission to Cape Town with Thatcher's biographer Mark Hollingsworth, who is a consultant to the project.
He hopes to interview several key players, including Mann's wife, Amanda, in the course of his research.
* WITH ENGLAND'S cricketers safely out of Zimbabwe, some bright news for one prominent critic of the "tour of shame".
Henry Olonga the Zimbabwe fast bowler who was dropped from his national side and forced to flee to the UK after criticising Robert Mugabe's regime, is about to sign a record deal.
He spent yesterday negotiating with executives from Universal and EMI, and hopes to have his first album on the shelves next summer.
"Henry's been performing live for a while now: I met him through Sir Tim Rice, who told me how wonderful he is." says his manager, Nick "The Colonel" Stewart, whose other discoveries include U2.
"He does a mixture of his own songs and covers, but we also want to reinvent some classic tunes with an African influence - it's not exactly Paul Simon's Graceland , but it's of that ilk."
* ECHOING ANTONY Sher, who criticised the "exclusivity" of the literary world, the actor Steven Berkoff is upset by the chorus of silence that greeted his recent foray into the world of books.
"Last year, I published a book called Tough Acts , and it received not one single review," he said, at Monday's premiere of Phantom of the Opera . "It was about all the great people I've worked with, like Polanski, and the inside story on what they're really like."
"The problem is that I always get reviewed as an actor, which is great, but it is a very small part of what I do. People don't really think of me as being a writer."
As if to underline the point, the former Bond villain, above, then failed to gain entry to the VIP section of the party, which was sponsored by Moet. He was turned away by the doorman.
* THE TROUBLED publisher Penguin has abandoned an ambitious foray into new media. A TV production venture, Penguin Television, is to be scrapped, just a year after its high-profile launch.
Some of the biggest names in cinema, including Baz Luhrmann, are still making programmes for the firm. These will be finished before it is closed down.
In July, Pandora revealed that some of Penguin's most famous authors were considering legal action against the firm, because it was experiencing distribution problems. That matter has yet to be settled.
* At long last, Jeremy Paxman has joined the Garrick. A dozen years after he was blackballed by members of the influential club, Paxo has finally gained the right to wear its "pink and cucumber" tie.
His name as a new member has been announced on the club's noticeboard, after it was fast-tracked at last week's meeting of the candidates committee, chaired by Sir Derek Hornby, father of the novelist Nick.
"This happened for no obvious reason," says one member. "But it might go some way towards saying sorry for what happened last time."
Newsnight's resident rottweiler finds himself in distinguished company: among those elected with him are Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the head of the Catholic Church, and the writer Lord Egremont.
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