More Doris Lessing

I think that this has to be the best response I've ever seen to winning a prize. She's just *thrilled*, isn't she? Ahem... Now I love her all the more.

(Incidentally, I was out at dinner last night and I told someone there my suggestion that Doris Lessing, at 87, should spend all hre prize money on drugs. She retorted that taking drugs is very bad, a health risk and not even all that enjoyable, and that the correct response to winning £763000 at the age of 87 is so set up a charitable foundation. So, that told me. Now that you've seen the video of Doris, though, whose advice do you think she's most likely to take?)

Doris Lessing and the Nobel Prize

Doris Lessing has won the Nobel Prize for literature. Good on her and good on them. Not only is she a fantastic novelist but she's a lovely woman; she came to give a talk to my bookgroup a few years ago and we were all in awe. I must admit that I've only read one of her books, 'The Golden Notebook', which was striking and memorable if occasionally baffling, and without doubt an incredibly important work for and about female writers - I'd say seminal, but that is entirely the wrong word. Ovarian? And now, as the BBC website says in its po-faced way, "She can... expect a rise in sales", including, probably, to me.

The Nobel prize money is £763000. Doris Lessing is 87 years old. What would you do with £763000 if you were 87? I think I would develop a massive drug habit. It's clearly idiotic to become a crack and heroin addict at 31 where you're in serious danger of losing your health, your family, your friends, your career, and eventually all of your money, leaving you in a life of degradation and crime. At 87, though, and with a spare £763000 in your pocket, it seems like a pretty good option. You'd be hard pushed to spend all of that on even the best drugs, your health is shot anyway, most of your family and friends are probably dead, and it's certainly not too young to retire. I am fully planning to spend the kids' inheritance on drugs, which my grandchildren can score for me and bring over to the nursing home. What else are you going to do with your twilight years? Watch 'This Morning'? Knit?