192In 1985 Douglas had received a call from the Observer magazine, the colour supplement published every week with the Observer, one of Britain’s quality Sunday newspapers.“Do you fancy going to Madagascar?” asked a voice on the other end of the line. “Umm,” said Douglas, “who’s that again, please?”“The Observer magazine. You know, the Observer. Rather a good Sunday broadsheet. Do you fancy going to Madagascar with a zoologist to look for the aye-aye?”“Aye-aye what?” said Douglas.“The aye-aye. A rare, very shy nocturnal lemur. It’s got beautiful eyes.”“Have you got the right person? I’m a humorous science fiction writer . . .”Later Douglas was to joke that he said “yes!” before they found out they had the wrong person. But they did have the right person. The World Wildlife Fund and the Observer had got together with a scheme to send writers and experts out into the world to find endangered species. The writers would have that freshness of perception that comes from complete ignorance of the subject (but, please God, they could write) and the experts would furnish the background and specialist knowledge.
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