Aclogged up motorway can provide the ideal conditions to play the balloon game; re-routed angst and venom will guarantee the ultimate cathartic experience. Raise your eyes to the heavens. The dot in the azure sky is a hot-air balloon heading earthwards at a disturbing rate. The basket dangling beneath the shrinking sac is crammed with every cad and rotter your imagination can concoct. There is panic on board. To maintain altitude human ballast is the only solution. Three passengers must be thrust overboard — quite possibly more.
There are stacks of candidates in Julian Fellowes’ Snobs (Orion Audio Books. Abridged. 5 hours 20 minutes. CD £19.99. Tape £12.99). Fellowes is also the reader and narrator, but being hands-on doesn’t grant him automatic immunity from the ‘big push’. In his role of raconteur he plays a ‘journeyman actor’ and is entirely responsible for introducing Edith Lavery, an upwardly mobile minx, to the solid but wearisome Lord Broughton.
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