Gore Vidal Escapes From Home, Appears on BBC

Michael C. Moynihan | November 5, 2008

The BBC has a deep fondness for Gore Vidal, the Castro-loving octogenarian crackpot who, I am told, once wrote a few decent novels. I once appeared on a BBC World Service program with Vidal, who muttered some scripted provocations about pederasty; stuff that would have likely shocked a radio audience in the 1950s, though a routine that hadn't aged particularly well. Listeners were supposed to be shocked and impressed by this bit of theater; a rude, semi-coherent old coot says dirty things, making the Bill Grundy-like host uncomfortable.

And yet again, it appears that one of his attendants left the gate unlocked, and Vidal wondered into a BBC satellite studio to offer his analysis of the presidential election. Mercifully, the host cuts him off and, one imagines, calls the LAPD: