On Monday 6 October 1983, Golding wrote in his journal:

This morning at ten o’clock, Ingmar whatsit rang from Stockholm. He then mysteriously talked about a phone call I ‘might’ get in a couple of hours time and went on to say it was a fifty/fifty chance that I would get the Nobel Prize! It is an example of thoughtless selfishness that he should try to get a foot in the door by inflicting a couple of hours anxiety, then a probable disappointment on me. That is a journalist all over. He is getting his foot in the door. How thoughtless can you get? I am shaking with a quite unnecessary excitement – no I’m not. I’m dismissing the idea and being calm.