paul beatty, welcome to hardtalk. let me start with a broad question. it seems to be optimism has always been seen as the default mood setting of american history. are you an optimist? iam not! i am not a pessimist either. reading the book, the sellout which has caused a storm and won the booker prize, some would read it and think, gosh, this man has a very bleak world view. i don't think it is that bleak, really, in a weird way. i think hopefully within the energy, there is a kind of something that belies the bleakness in a way. the energy contained vicious humour, and it is very funny, but fundamentally, you have a book that is pretty much about race relations and the experience of being black in america today, and it is not that different from the way it has ever been, including the era of outright slavery and segregation and deep prejudice. i can't say that — i am 5a, i am not 254. so i cannot speak for how it is different. i'm sure it is. my life is different within 5a years. better different? would you use the word progress? barack obama, when h

paul beatty, the first american to win after his book was rejected by 18 publishers. he thinks trump could be good for creative business. i think people are charged, you know, as opposed to feeling enervated, which i think is often the case. so yeah, sometimes it's nice to have something to write against or to scream against or rant. i don't know if that necessarily produces, you know, valuable art. but i think the more stuff that's out there, the more stuff that's going to be good, you know. so people are charged to create, you know, there's nothing wrong with that. # will i be rich? # i tell them tenderly. # que sera, sera... well, that was fun. just a couple of other things i noticed in there. it's going to be a great year for librans, redheads, and people from coventry. and that carries the full imprimatur and majesty of newsnight behind it. have a good one. steve smith with people who got something right in 2016. i had a serious question which was is the world getting harder to forecast. mike? i think it is. are betting odds getting longer on average? we've had t