The Beatrix Potter Guide to Business (Radio 4) has been quite the most maddening radio. I almost loved it, with Richard Collins giving brilliant contextual readings of some of Potter's best-loved tales.
He related stories about Jemima Puddleduck or Samuel Whiskers to events and especially fiscal developments in Potter's life. It quite changed how I think about Ginger and Pickles – not that I do, often, to be honest – to hear that it was written in the shadow of a bank panic in 1907. The story is, Collins suggested, "a bit of a parable for the boom and bust economy".
If only he had left it at that. Instead, we had lots of entrepreneurial types butting in with their skewed, vacuous interpretations. Puddleduck, in their eyes, is all about the risks of venture capitalism (or "VC" as they called it). The fox's problem, we were told, is that "he is clearly trying to get to an end point faster than the underlying business would otherwise choose to go".
So it's been a weird listen, with moments of insight and then business-speak forced uncomfortably into the mix. Gerald Ratner popped up yesterday to share his thin thoughts on Timmy Tiptoes. "He's monopolised all the nuts," he suggested, "but there's always a twist." I had my head in my hands by this point.
