It is not every day of your life that
you hear the phrase, “When
Nicholas Parsons comes out,
Nottingham will be waiting for you.”
And, once heard, it is a difficult
phrase to forget. How could anyone
forget anything involving the
prospect of Nicholas Parsons coming
out? Let me explain.

Having written a book about the
arms trade, it seemed only natural
that I should want people to read it,
so, at the publisher’s request, I spent
two days at the BBC’s Broadcasting
House. Within the bowels of this
august organisation is a unit with
four studios, a reception area, a sofa
and a coffee machine. The studios
link to BBC regional stations all
across the country, where promoting
books is the sturdy fair of
programming. Its here that a handful
of folk wait to go into one of the
studios to sit at a desk with a
microphone on it until suddenly,
through headphones, comes a voice:
“Hi it’s Sue here from Radio Jersey;
we’ll be with you straight after the
travel.”

After a couple of interviews I
begin to get the hang of this
promotion lark. “So,“ says an
incredulous presenter’s voice from
Wales, “what’s a comedian doing
writing about the arms trade?”, “I
should say the book is called ‘As
Used on the Famous Nelson
Mandela’ and the title comes from
an arms dealer’s website; he was
advertising South African-made leg
irons and this was the advertising
strap line: As used on the famous
Nelson Mandela.”

“Good Lord,” I hear the Welsh
voice say and carry on: ”And this is
at the heart of the book. Arms
dealers really do not see themselves
as others see them. Most decent folk
see the arms industry as distasteful at
best, even Daily Mail readers; it is
not something they want their
children to do. One arms company I
phoned in South Africa to talk to
about electroshock stun batons put
me on hold (‘Wait while I get the
expert’ the clipped Africaans voice
had said) and I had music piped
down the phone at me. Thus far
fairly normal, except that the music
they played was ‘Love me tender’
and this was an electroshock
manufacturer.”

The more astute reader has
noticed that I didn’t answer the
interviewer’s question. I sort of gave
up doing that after I managed to do
an entire interview without getting to
mention that I’d written a book on
the arms trade. Almost all the
presenters I spoke to started from a
position of “This gun selling is a bit
off, isn’t it?” but what
eventually seemed to
fascinate them was the scale
of the UK’s subsidy to the
arms industry. Using the work
of Paul Ingrams (BASIC) and
Roy Isbister (Saferworld), I
came up with the rough figure
that the UK subsidises each job
in arms exports to the tune of about
£13,000 per year.

“So it isn’t even good for the
economy!” was a phrase I heard in
various regional accents over the two
days. It seemed the presenters were
most shocked not by the 640 million
small arms at large in the world, but
by the fact that selling them didn’t
even benefit the British economy.

Back on the sofa the receptionist
nods at me. Nicholas Parsons has
just walked past so it’s my turn
again. I gulp a final mouthful of
coffee and mentally run through a
story I’m going to tell the radio
listeners about working with school
children to buy torture equipment
and expose the UK government’s
loopholes in the law. “Remember to
mention the 13 grand,” I say out
loud as I head into the studio, “and
the title: ‘As Used on the Famous
Nelson Mandela’.”

__As Used on the
Famous Nelson
Mandela__ was
published by Ebury
Press in July. Details
of Mark’s book
readings and tour
can be found at
www.markthomasinfo.com