Democracy in action, it touched people‘s lives in the most immediate way, shaped opinions, provoked and entertained and engaged far more effectively  than  all  those  books  that  no-one  read  or  plays  that  no-one  went  to  see.  Emma could say what she liked about the Tories (Dexter was no fan either, though more for reasons of  style  than  principle)  but  they  had  certainly  shaken  up  the  media.  Until recently, broadcasting had seemed stuffy, worthy and dull; heavily unionised, grey and bureaucratic, full  of bearded  lifers  and  do-gooders  and  old  dears  pushing  tea-trolleys;  a  sort  of  showbiz branch of the Civil Service. Redlight Productions, on the other hand, was part  of the boom of new,  youthful,  privately  owned  independent  companies  wresting  the  means  of  production away from those fusty old Reithian dinosaurs. There was money in the media; the fact sang out from the primary-coloured open-plan offices with their state-of-the-art computer systems and generous communal fridges.

His rise through this world had been meteoric. The woman he had met on a train in India with the glossy black bob and tiny spectacles had given him his first job as a runner, then a researcher, and  now he was Assistant Producer, Asst Prod, on  UP4IT, a weekend magazine programme that mixed live music and outrageous stand-up with reports on issues that ‗really affect young people today‘: STDs, drugs, dance music, drugs, police brutality, drugs. Dexter　produced hyperactive little films of grim housing estates shot from crazy angles through fisheye  lenses,  the  clouds  speeded  up  to  a  soundtrack  of  acid  house.  There  was  even  talk  of putting him in front of the cameras in the next series. He was excelling,  he was flying and there seemed to be every possibility that he might make his parents proud.

‗I  work  in  TV‘;  just  saying  it  gave  him  satisfaction.  He  liked  striding  down  Berwick Street to an edit-suite with a jiffy bag of videotapes, nodding at people just like him. He liked the sushi platters and the launch parties, he liked drinking from water coolers and ordering couriers and saying things like ‗we‘ve got to lose six seconds‘. Secretly, he liked the fact that it  was  one  of  the  better-looking  industries,  and  one  that  valued  youth.  No  chance,  in  this brave new world of TV, of walking into a conference room to find a group of sixty-two-year　olds brainstorming. What happened to TV people when they reached a certain age?Where did  they  go?