The Great Hargeisa Goat Bubble

Well, my first radio play, The Great Hargeisa Goat Bubble, went out on BBC Radio 4 today, but my highly strung, indeed neurotic, computer wouldn't let me listen to it. I gather it is available for the next week here, so I'll try and listen to it tomorrow. But if any of you heard it, tell me what you thought, I'd be very interested... My parents heard it, in a shed in Tipperary (don't ask), and thought it was marvellous, but they are biased.

If any of you are BBC listeners looking for the original short story, it is here.

It will also be appearing as part of Jude: Level 2 later this year...

Comments

[Dianne Young]

Thankyou Mr. Julian Gough for an hour of joy. Im a lazy person so to get me to the computer and type in your name and google you is for me a four minute mile but your play and now it is Saturday kept me energised. Even now I have begged my husband to try and record it from bbc site and will send a copy to friends and family. Am not a critic but having listened to bbc plays all my adult life I can only say this was one of the best. Many thanks Dianne Young

[Julian Gough]

Well Dianne, I write - hell, I live - for such responses. I'm so pleased you enjoyed the play so much. You have, in turn, made my day! And so the good-karma ping-pong continues, as I shall now bounce down the street smiling at strangers...

Thanks again for making the effort to contact me with your response, I really appreciate it.

[Jane Sanders]

We happened across your play by chance while driving across Exmoor yesterday and it enlivened our drive no end! By the end we felt we very nearly understood derivatives and sub-prime etc etc but maybe not quite! It was charming and funny and utterly entertaining. I now look forward to reading your book. Lovely to discover a new author one wants to recommend to friends. Now go out and smile at some more strangers - always a worthwhile activity.

[Julian Gough]

Jane, I'm delighted. Hope you enjoy my book as much as you did the play (I should probably warn you, Jude: Level 1 contains slightly more swearing than the play does...But I'm Irish, we swear a lot, it's part of our culture. About 50%)

Have fun, live long...

[Betty]

Julian, the play was brilliant. The dialogue was so close to the story, first published in the "Financial Times" and the first piece of literary fiction they ever published. I hope some of the people who helped ruin our economy were listening. On the day the play was broadcast, some of the shareholders of our main Bank, present at the A.G.M. in Dublin, threw eggs at the Directors, as they tried to talk their way out of the mess they made of other peoples' money.

Again, when the play finished on B.B.C. Radio 4 the news came on. For a moment, I thought the guy was giving a summary of the play. What he had to report was spot on for a synopsis of the play.

I know I am your Mammy, and I now know, when your were writing 'novels' and 'plays' at nine years of age, your weren't wasting your time. Well done Ju.

We brought the old radio in from the shed. It had Long Wave, which we needed to get BBC Radio 4. Although we cleaned it up, it was still too filthy to take it past the back door. However, it did the job.

When you were a child, and we lived in London, I used to listen to the said station every day. The Archers, the programme on just before the play, reminded me of my childhood on the farm in South Tipperary. Over filfty five years ago, your grandfather would come in to the kitchen in the middle of milking the cows in summmer, just to listen to the Archers. He would then go out and finsh the milking before coming in for supper. My job was to call him in at 6.45p.m. as I recall, the time it started.

Cheers Julian. Thanks again for all the entertainment in your books, but especially for being just yourself. May you go from strength to strength.

Betty. Dad says hi. He is really proud of you too.

[Julian Gough]

Hi mum! (Regular readers may know her better as the mysterious "Betty G")

Ah, you and dad were always great. Never discouraged the scribbling.

I know that old radio, I think it used to be mine once... Brown, two speakers, cassette deck in the middle? Hanging cockeyed by its carrying handle from a nail in the big shed? Covered in (and filled with) black dust from dad carving bog oak with power-tools, of course. I can see why you didn't bring it in.

I'm very happy you enjoyed the play...

[db]

Congratulations.
I absolutely love the story, I hope I would be able to catch it sometime.

[Julian Gough]

Very pleased you enjoyed the story, db. Yes, I too hope you can catch (and, I hope, enjoy) the radio version. It'll be available for free from the BBC for 4 more days, here...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00k9p0w/Afternoon_Play_The_Great_Hargeisa_Goat_Bubble/

[Doug Butler]

Brilliant story and radio play! The extra bits in the play explaning the 'invisible hand of Adam Smith' and mysteries such as 'derivatives' were a great help in understanding how the lunatics got us into this mess, whilst the closing interview was chilling, even with the advantage of hindsight...
looking forward to reading your books now.

[Julian Gough]

Oh, I am so pleased you liked the new bits... Yes, the invisible hand bit seems to work. I added that in at the last minute. It made the director laugh...

[Peter Hutchinson]

A bit late, this post - but I'm still enjoying the memory of the radio play, which made me laugh heartily externally (whilst weeping inside). I'm prompted to write this post following weekend conversations with a long-time friend to whom I was attempting to explain the mysteries of banking (and associated crises) - it then occurred to me that you had already done it much better. So, at the risk of incurring copyright ire, I'm sending him a recording of the play. And the prophetic voice rings true - it would appear that all the hard talk about tougher regulation 'so this will never happen again' is already being drowned out by the sound of goats being driven across the border to Djibouti - to be virtualised in ever more creative ways, no doubt...

[Julian Gough]

Send away Peter, with my blessing. Lovely that you like it so much.

Yes, Djibouti here we come...

[Pablo (yo)]

Great blog!!!
If you like, come back and visit mine: http://albumdeestampillas.blogspot.com

Thanks,
Pablo from Argentina

[Karen Henderson]

Absolutely superb. Listened to it on the bbc iplayer in Turkey

[Charlotte]

I loved your play so much, such a brilliant expose of the derivatives world told in an easy to follow and funny story! I used to work at LIFFE as senior legal counsel and you were spot-on about the strange affection that people speak off, even now, misty eyed about the days of floor trading! Carry on writing!