At a TV producers' conference
On 17/11/2016 I went to Cologne to speak at the Grosser UFA-Show Gipfel, the "summit meeting" of German TV producers and execs. I had explained beforehand that I'm not really a TV person – I've been on the TV a lot, mainly commenting on news stories, selling books or pretending to annoy Parisian waiters – so the best I could offer was a personal view of entertainment.
It was a plea to make intelligent TV, which doesn't mean that it can't be fun. The same goes, in my view, for history books. I try to stick to the facts but make them entertaining (as historical figures often are).
Anyway, I got there to fund that the title of my speech was announced as "Make it intelligent but fun!" I knew that that exclamation mark at the end turned the title into an order. So I had to start by saying that it was a bit presumptuous. These days, as a Brit speaking to Europeans, the most I can do is offer a few polite suggestions.
