Doris Lessing's Nobel Prize

Last Modified: 11 Oct 2007
By: Jon Snow

On tonight's show with Snowmail...

First off, Doris Lessing has got the Nobel prize for literature, and absolute chaos reigns round her north London home. Our man has just gone in to see her.

She had apparently forgotten all about being on the shortlist, and was out shopping, and came back to find enough hacks outside to cover an air crash.

Anyway, we'll be hearing from her tonight - feminist, anti-racist, African-born, wonderful woman, and still with us, as she proved last year with an interesting novel that countenanced the idea of a world without men. I admit, a rather happy prospect!

C. difficile bug may have caused 90 deaths

Well, from matters literary straight to the worst of lurgies - C. difficile. A most appalling inspection document on the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Hospital Trust reveals that the hospital-borne infection was definitely or probably responsible for the deaths of approximately 90 people between 2004 and 2006. The place was filthy.

Of course, what one knows is that this is a problem that's been around for years in every hospital system in every country in the world, not least because we're all likely to be carrying it but we have compensatory bacteria to keep it at bay.

And the problem, of course, is that antibiotics kill these bacteria, allowing the C-difficile to flourish.

So the enemies are antibiotics and filth, and it seems that Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells went in for filth in a big way. Victoria Macdonald has spent the day there - her report, at seven. Tom Clarke is looking at the wider picture across the health service.

McCartney divorce

We're still awaiting the result of the McCartneys' divorce arbitration, which may result in the highest payout in history. He's worth £875m, the ex-wife Heather is demanding £70m, and it is thought she will get £50m. Well, we'll find out what, at seven.

Row over soldiers' compensation

The government has moved to compensate wounded soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. But families of those involved still feel it's inadequate. We'll be talking to the mother of one grievously badly injured soldier, and to the minister.

Gates talks Turkey

The extraordinary story of the US Congress and the massacre of Armenians by Turkey back in the early 1900s continues. A motion condemning Turkey was passed last night by the House of Representatives.

Today I went down to Whitehall, where the US Defense Secretary Bob Gates was meeting with UK Defence Secretary Des Browne, and I asked the American for a reaction. It's rare that you ask someone a question at a news conference that attracts quite such a formidable and passionately felt answer.

He listed the fantastic dependence that the American war effort in Iraq has upon Turkey, and at the end of it I was left wondering whether perhaps the Democrats in Congress were deliberately trying to undermine the war effort. Sarah Smith is on the case in Washington.

China's thought police

The report that I promised you from Lindsey Hilsum in China last night about the Chinese thought police trying to contain the internet ahead of the Olympics runs tonight. My thought police are suddenly on my back. I've got to run but I'll see you at seven. Jon.

AND ON MORE4 WITH KYLIE MORRIS
All the latest on the C.difficile fallout, and special reports from London and the zeitgeist. While there's no election now on the cards for the UK, there is election fever in some parts of the country, where Polish immigrants are being canvassed, persuaded and groomed to vote in their country's general election next week.

And in the zeitgeist, a book about the Israel lobby in the US that started out as an academic study, and which is causing a stir in America, is now on sale here. Probing analysis - or does it represent a modern form of respectable antisemitism ? All at eight.