Getting It! - Couverture souple

WANTED - producers, presenters, technicians, scriptwriters, buyers, office staff to help set up a brand new shopping channel, Getting It. Qualifications: You don't need a sense of humour to work here - you must be crazy. Salary: how low can you go? Stella and Fran are in their early forties and have secret hopes that the channel will brighten up their rather dull lives and catapult them into a new world of show biz. They are delighted when taken on. But it doesn't quite work out like that. Products collapse during live demonstrations, prices given out are wrong, descriptions don't match the products...Complaints pour in both from the public and the statutory bodies. Word gets round, journalists start to pick up the story and viewing figures rocket as people tune in just to see if there are any more bloopers. It becomes a success! However, fame isn't quite what Stella and Fran envisaged and, by the end, they realise they just aren't cut out for that sort of life.

Jane Blanchard is Head of Features at Carlton Television in the West Country and was voted 'Woman of the Year' in 1992 for services to television. This is her third novel.