Why I sometimes worry about a dingbat as big as the Ritz

Fitzgerald had one or two early successes, lost his skills and slid into a disreputable old age

I SOMETIMES worry about Jeffrey Archer. Not a lot, you understand. I have other things to do as well. Raise a family, make a living, argue with Jehovah's Witnesses, look up words in the dictionary, and so on, but sometimes in the time that is left to me I worry about Jeffrey Archer, and what it is like being in that mind of his.

For instance, he crops up in The Guardian on 1 August, in that strange new little pull-out supplement called The Editor...

Have you spotted that The Guardian has sprouted yet another little supplement? The Guardian people have obviously noticed that nobody can read all the papers these days, which is why there are new digest publications like Cover and The Week, but The Guardian doesn't want people rushing off and buying those, so they have decided to do it themselves, and they now produce a weekly thin magazine called The Editor which brings you - and I quote their banner heading - "The Best Of The World's Media Edited For You". I suppose that reads better than "The Guardian's Attempt to Compete with New Weekly Magazines Like The Week".

Anyway, in The Editor of 1 August 1998 there was a reprint of a brief interview with Jeffrey Archer which had previously appeared in Mensa Quest, a magazine of which till that moment I had been ignorant. (I wouldn't have said that an interview with Jeffrey Archer represented the best of the world's media whether edited for me or anyone else, but let it pass.) Of course it wasn't really an interview - it was one of those little questionnaires which used to be popular as a household game in about 1900 and have come back again as a lazy form of journalism, wherein the interviewee is faced with questions (printed in bold) such as "What is the last film you saw?" and the interviewee says, in a light typeface, "Sliding Doors".

Well, the Mensa questionnaire pops a few questions about brain power, such as "If you had to make a choice, which would you rather lose - your looks or your brains?" (to which Archer replies accurately but winningly, "To be honest, I don't think it would be a problem either way") but also asks him: "If you went on Mastermind, what would your specialist subject be?"

Archer's answer is: "The works of F Scott Fitzgerald."

This I find slightly surprising, although I suppose there are parallels between the two. Fitzgerald had one or two early smash hit successes which he never repeated, losing his skills and sliding into a disreputable old age...

What am I saying? There are no parallels at all.

But here is Jeffrey Archer again, in the Radio Times last May, facing a questionnaire of exactly the same kind, with questions in bold, and answers in light. We learn that Hancock's Half Hour is Archer's all-time favourite TV programme (parallels again there, as Hancock's character was a vainglorious, ambitious but rather sad and self-deluding figure - what am I saying! There are no parallels at all...) and then we come to familiar territory, because Radio Times asks him: "On Mastermind, what would be your specialist subject?"

Hey, we know that! It's the works of F Scott Fitzgerald!

Except that it's not. When asked the question by the Radio Times, Archer said: "The short stories of Somerset Maugham." That's one of the reasons why I worry about Jeffrey Archer. Because he can't remember which specialist subject he's going to offer on Mastermind.

Why is this? Has he simply forgotten who his favourite writer is? Does he switch from favourite author to favourite author with deceptive ease? Can he not remember, when faced with a questionnaire, which answer he made up last time so that he can repeat it this time? Does he think that people who ask him questions deserve value for money, so he will give a different answer every time?

Still, I can see why Jeffrey Archer is drawn to Somerset Maugham. Maugham was a master story-teller who, when he had run out of stories from his own experience, used to borrow stories he had heard other people tell, or even borrow stories he heard at third-hand, and retell them as his own, and who didn't talk much about his own private life as there were several episodes in it which he preferred to keep quiet about...

What am I talking about?There are no parallels at all.

Still, if ever I am asked what subject I would answer questions on if invited to go on Mastermind, I know now what I will say.

"I would like to answer questions on what Jeffrey Archer says he would answer questions on if he ever get asked on Mastermind."