Piffling Lives: Random Mouse

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Madeline is a funeral house mouse, and she's hoping to turn her memoirs into a Sunday Times bestseller.

But how does a mouse get their work published?

Today, we're going to find out.

This is the village of Piffling Vale, and these are Piffling Lives.

Wooden Overcoats presents

Random Mouse.

It's another morning in the offices of Britain's foremost publishing house for rodent literature, Random Mouse.

Gloria is mousing the phone lines.

Good morning, Random Mouse Publishing.

Gloria speaking, how can I help you?

Hmm, yeah, a manuscript about Aval overcoming an addiction to GM week does sound interesting, but you may prefer a specialist woodland publisher for that.

I've got a number for an editor at Simon ⁇ Schrewster.

Hold the line, please.

Gloria works for Random Mouse's CEO, Esmeralda Holt.

Esmeralda has left her tiny footprints right across the mouse literary scene.

She came to Random Mouse from Beaver and Beaver, where she was responsible for putting into readers' paws such sensational works as Of Mice and Some Other Mice and The Horse Whiskerer.

She knows that if Random Mouse wants to thrive in today's competitive markets, it has to diversify.

Uh yes, I'm Esmeralda Holt.

I've been the CEO of Random Mouse Publishing for, oh, well, three months, which is ages in this business.

This business being a mouse.

Yeah, yeah, we specialize in mouse publishing, though we are branching out, starting with some memoirs from other rodents.

We're hoping to secure this great deal called In the Lab of the Gods.

It's an autobiogue about breaking out of a medical testing centre, but well, that deal is not going.

Trevor and Gloria are making coffee before the weekly submissions meeting.

Yeah, Esmeralda's all right to work for.

She's got,

let's say, quite strident opinions.

Yet she hates rats.

Hate is a very strong word, Gloria.

She hates them.

And she doesn't like the intern.

She thinks he's part mole rat and won't come clean about it.

She's because his air parts in that funny way.

Esmeralda's been in the industry a long time.

You know there's a high staff turnover in the mouse world and she has lasted.

So yes, some of her views are a bit outmoded, but she's great at her job.

She really chuffinates rats though.

Random Mouse's offices are in a new development inside a converted vending machine in fashionable Easter London.

The conference room in units E3 and E4, once home to the thriving double-decker and toffee crisp industry, is now the venue for Random Mouse to nose out their next bestseller.

Today, we're going to sit in on their submissions meeting for a mice-eye view on the industry.

Yup, okay.

So, here we are in our weekly go-through of all the manuscripts we get sent that we're getting pitched.

Yep, so you know me.

Gloria, do you want to introduce yourself?

Hi.

Hello, I'm Gloria.

I'm the office administrator, so I'm in charge, basically.

No, so I keep the office running.

Most importantly, I make sure there's enough cheese in the office.

And if you do ingest poison, then second draw down on my desk is Antidote Central.

Graham, who used to work here, he once, once, uh, he was an editor.

He ate poison because he thought it was uh like a rice krispie someone had stepped on, but it was poison.

And then he went to my desk and opened the wrong antidote, and like, it was dreadful.

He threw up his guts all over this display we were putting together for the new Jack Squeaker book.

His brother died in a glue trap, though, so his family is like basically cursed.

And Gloria is also one of our manuscript readers.

Yeah.

Trevor, why don't you say hello?

Yeah, hi, I'm Trevor.

I used to be a freelance agent, but now I work on the other side of the mouse hole, as it were.

I do a lot of stuff in sales and working with our overseas partners.

Since this is a radio documentary, I think I should point out that Trevor is actually a field mouse.

We're very pro-diversity here at Random Mouse.

Except Rat.

Yes, so there is a bit of a stereotype that the industry is all, you know, pampered.

Heist mice, they call us.

So, yeah.

Yep.

And that's our intern, Aubrey.

Aubrey, don't worry about introducing yourself, just take notes.

Okay,

so, what have we had this week?

It was a bit of a bumper week.

We had a lot in.

I think because of the time of year, a lot of harvest mice trying to get things in before summer kicks off.

So, I reckon we'll have a bit of a dip until the autumn after this.

Anything baiting your trap, guys?

Yeah, I really liked this one here.

It's a new author.

It's a sort of take on the classic town mouse country mouse, but it's set in the Cold War.

Okay.

So, Western Imperialist Pig Mouse, Eastern Commie Mouse.

Okay, yeah.

I like that too.

I mean, we've had a lot of memoirs recently, and I know you don't want to flood the list with them, but this one is great.

It's about some mouse who did two seasons of Spring Watch.

Oh, yeah, pack em up, pack them in.

That was good.

I hate to poison anyone's cheese, but I think Bloomsbury Rat have something similar on their autumn schedule.

Let me check.

Do you want your Blackberry?

No, that's for my lunch later, but you could pass me my phone.

Cheers.

Yeah, it's called Humble Feelings.

It's about being on Autumn Watch.

They've even got Kate for the cover.

That is annoying.

We could try and rush it out, but I don't want to be a second mouse gets a cheese scenario if we're competing.

Um, so I met with some of our agent pals last week.

Laverne

actually hasn't got much on the vol front.

Industry's a bit volatile, I guess.

Ho ho.

But there's a new squeegee wood mouse.

Another chives and booster.

Well, they sell, don't they?

I mean, we're only able to publish all the actual good stuff because of that.

And all those poor as a church mouse misery memoir things.

Aubrey, put her hand down.

This isn't school.

Trevor?

On that point of actual good stuff, there's a fairly good pop history book about the truth in Aesop's Lion and Mouse fable.

I think the writer might be a doctor.

She's probably got some kind of Mickey Mouse degree, at least.

Which, in our industry, is actually really good.

Oh, did everyone see that funeral one?

Not you, Aubrey.

She wasn't asking you.

Remind me again.

Where is it?

Um.

Here we are.

Uh, memoirs of a funeral house mouse.

Hmm.

I'll say it now.

That title won't sell.

Well,

no.

But that's not the only thing we should think about.

I mean, I liked it, but it's a bit sapio-centric.

We are meant to be a mouse publisher, and it felt very much like the author had foregrounded her human leads.

Yeah, I can see that.

I'd have liked more insight into what she, the mouse, was doing.

Well, she was very isolated.

That's a very human view of the lone mouse.

We need to be publishing more strong mouse characters.

And I felt our mouse got lost with those two.

What were they?

Eric Chapman and Ranamede Fut.

And that girl who's great at everything.

Yeah, and the weird sister.

Oh, I liked her.

Did you?

Well, a bit.

All that said, I do like it.

It's just that title.

I don't know what to do with it.

What did it say?

You could call it the mausoleum.

Get out, Aubrey.

Oh, the author's got something.

Here, it's in a covering letter.

Please find and close the manuscript for my memoir.

Da da da.

It used to be the only one.

It isn't anymore.

Da da da da da.

Can put more snogging in if required.

Oh, yes, here we are.

I have commenced work on a second volume as current events in Piffling Vale cannot be contained in just one manuscript.

It is tentatively titled Memoirs of a Funeral House Mouse 2, or Some Other Memoirs of a Funeral House Mouse

or Memoirs of a Funeral House Mouse a Good Day to Mouse Heart.

Oh, franchise, love it.

You've got to admit, there are more places for this story to go.

Like the snogging.

Not just the snogging, Gloria.

I want to know what happened with that mental secretary and the sister taking over the funeral parlour.

And that raunchy book.

Aubrey, get back in here.

All right, I'll come out whiskers first.

I'll take this one on.

The Channel Islands would be great for breaking into the French domestic market.

I've got a contact at Bloom Serie I can call.

Excellent.

I think we've got space for this Madeline, whoever she is, on the slate for summer.

Gloria, can you draw up a standard two-book deal and pop it in the post?

Cheers.

Thanks.

I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes.

Now I'm looking forward to the snogging.

Yeah.

Back at their desks, the employees of Random Mouse quickly return to their normal workday.

Gloria refills a stock order.

Trevor attempts some pidgin French with a French pidgin publisher.

Esmeralda feels a call from Rodent Resources about a mandatory diversity training day.

And across the sea, in a funeral home on the island of Piffiling, a mouse called Madeline is hard at work.

Random Mouse was written by Rosie Fletcher and was performed by Alison Skilbeck as Esmeralda, Rosie Fletcher as Gloria, Joseph Cullen as Trevor, and narrated by David K.

Barnes.

The music was composed and conducted by James Whittle.

The programme was recorded at the RNIB Talking Book Studios and was directed and produced by Andy Goddard and John Wakefield.

The Fable and Folly Network, where fiction producers flourish.

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