Fat Advance For A Yawning Read

I love the way The Guardian newspaper in Britain reports the obscene advance that Penguin has paid to retired head of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan for an autobiography.

Who, you may ask, would want to read this? Do the publishers really believe this will sell outside of the US? Do they really expect to recover the 8.5 million dollar advance? Will Greenspace actually finish the book, given he's already 80? Here's the opening of The Guardian's article:

"OPENING CREDITS. CROSS-FADE TO: INTERIOR. NIGHT. A SWEATY JAZZ JOINT IN MANHATTAN, 1953. BEATNIKS AND SQUARES ALIKE CROWD ROUND AL GREENSPAN, A 27-YEAR-OLD SAX PLAYER.

BEATNIK (TO GREENSPAN): I dig the way you blow, man.

GREENSPAN: Thanks, man, but this scene's getting to be a drag. (REACHES INTO ZOOT SUIT, PULLS OUT DOG-EARED COPY OF AYN RAND'S THE FOUNTAINHEAD.) Check out what this crazy Russian chick says. Turns out capitalism's the coolest. I'm off to Washington, where in 50 years I shall become the longest-serving chairman of the Federal Reserve and America's most powerful and revered financial guru.

BEATNIK: Bummer!

Historically inaccurate? Yes - it was swing, not jazz. Clunky, as the opening of a movie script? Without doubt. But in how many other ways than a sexed-up biopic can Penguin hope to recoup the mountainous advance it has agreed to pay Alan Greenspan, the recently retired 80-year-old chair of the Fed (the US equivalent of the Bank of England) for his memoirs - in excess of $8.5m (or £5m)?"