Jane Actually

make it public. And after all, if Austen confirms the contents of the letter, then all we’ve done is strengthen her claim. We have to present this as the result of research and commitment to Austen studies.”
    Courtney was a little surprised at how quickly his discovery of the letter—well, imminent discovery of the letter—had become a joint project, but he realized how important an ally Davis could be and he also wondered if Davis weren’t a little upset that she hadn’t been asked to be on that committee.
    And finally, he realized that he now considered Davis quite attractive. And that she had never asked him to call her Alice.

VOLUME II

Titbits II
A God-shaped vacuum
    RADIO FOUR TRANSCRIPT
    BROADCAST: 8 JULY 2013
    SHOW: ROOMFUL OF MONKEYS
    PRODUCER: JONATHAN THACKER
    ROGER HAWKINS: Good evening and welcome to Roomful of Monkeys, the show that tackles thought provoking questions in a way that makes them sound silly. I’m your moderator, Roger Hawkins and this week we’re going to examine the state of God since the discovery of the afterlife and we have some very exciting guests to discuss this topic. From the very popular show on state sponsored television we have that guest extraordinaire, comedian Stephen Fry. How often have you been on Idiotic Question, Stephen?
    STEPHEN FRY: Every episode but one when I broke my arm, Roger, as you well know and thank you for reminding me of a painful injury. I understand you stand ready to substitute for me again?
    HAWKINS: Just as soon as I can arrange it, Stephen … I mean should the need arise again. And from the world of science, we have physicist and presenter Dr. Brian Cox, just back from circling the globe in pursuit of one of the truly staggering questions of the universe, How many times can I get the BBC to fly me to Hawaii for a documentary about a theoretical particle that has nothing to do with Hawaii?
    BRIAN COX: Oh but it has everything to do with it because dark matter is invisible to even the most powerful telescopes, one of which happens to be in Hawaii, and I needed three minutes of footage of me on a beach in Hawaii and two minutes of me talking to astronomers at the Keck Observatory.
    HAWKINS: It’s all how you write the script then, which is why next week’s podcast will be direct from the Bahamas. And our final guest may seem an odd choice but she has had a long time—almost two hundred years—to ponder the question of God, the author of
Pride and Prejudice
and
Sense and Sensibility
, Miss Jane Austen.
    JANE AUSTEN: I am delighted to appear on your show, although I wonder if the odds are against me. I think Dr Cox and Mr Fry are both on record as atheists.
    COX: I’ve been persuaded to play devil’s advocate today, ma’am. Well the opposite, actually. You can think of me as an agnostic today.
    AUSTEN: I still think that puts the onus on me. After two hundred years, you will expect something very clever of me, but I’m afraid all I can offer is that I think the “state of God” as you put it remains as it was before the discovery of the afterlife.
    FRY: All you can expect from me are three things very dull indeed. And I am famously also on record as being a Janeite, nevertheless I have to question your remark. Isn’t two hundred years of the living hell that is the afterlife proof that God does not exist?
    HAWKINS: Now hold on Stephen, you know that’s not our remit today. We’re here to talk about the state of God, that is, about the impression among the general public about God, not about the existence of a supernatural being.
    FRY: I do apologize. Let me rephrase then. Has two hundred years of solitude not changed your opinions about God, Miss Austen? And can we not also assume the general public have changed their opinions?
    AUSTEN: Of course the experience of dying and awakening to the reality of the afterlife shook my view of everything that I held dear, Mr Fry. But faith ultimately sustained me. I was never one to believe that God worked on a timetable understandable to us poor mortals … to say nothing of poor Bishop Usher who usually gets trotted out about now.
    COX: I’ve been guilty about that. I suppose using him to discredit believers is almost as bad as comparing someone to Hitler. Mind you, there are still people who literally believe in the timetable of the Bible. Oh, and there I’ve gone and lost the argument.
    HAWKINS: But back to the question of the general public’s view of God, and not to further question