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Wednesday, November 13th

After rehearsal today Anne Henshaw came to tell us that Charisma are, in fact, broke. How serious it is we don’t know – but at least they admit that we are owed £13,000 and presumably this money increases every time someone buys one of our records.

Thursday, November 14th

Simon A came round. He had been at a union meeting called to talk about the next step in his continuing war against the producer and editor of World in Action, who, in their bid to lure Granada reporters up to Manchester, have taken the unprecedented step of threatening to fire those who won’t come. It sounds as though a fearless World in Action exposé of World in Action is required.

SA has been working for the last seven weeks gathering material for a programme on police corruption. He says the information is incredible. Corruption starts early in the Metropolitan Police, when bobbies, in order to be well considered, are judged on the number of arrests they make. According to SA’s sources, it is commonplace therefore for vagrants and down-and-outs to be quite falsely charged with trying to break into cars, etc, etc. The corruption at the top is almost institutionalised. One forgets the close social connections between police and the underworld. In many cases there is a mutual respect, in some real friendship – and SA says a man like James Humphries, the recently gaoled Soho ‘porn king’, was a regular dinner party guest of senior policemen.

Tuesday, November 19th

A clear, sunny morning. London is drying out after a week of heavy rain. The pound at its lowest level ever yesterday, share prices down to 1958 levels, the miners’ rejection of a big productivity deal, and another report from the Hudson Institute in Paris, which prophesies that Britain has had it, and in the 1980s there will be a decline in living standards, which will leave us on a level with Spain. Certainly we have already made our mark on Benidorm, so maybe UK and Spain should amalgamate and go into leisure in a big way, and leave the smooth, Tonik-suited executives of Germany and Holland to run our business for us.

Anyway, despite this gloom, life goes on, and Python flourishes. Our third show finally seems to have brought people back to the fold. Both the Sunday Times and The Observer noted this weekend that the show was back on ‘cracking form’ (the Sunday Times). We recorded our last show on Saturday – to a very receptive audience, which was most encouraging. The BBC, or rather J Gilbert on the phone to G Chapman, have confirmed that they want us to do seven more shows in the spring, and Eric was heard on Saturday night to agree to doing them – provided there are plenty of sketches and not so many storylines.

Friday, November 22nd

The depressing pattern of grey skies, rain and dark days is matched only by the news. In Tunis Arab guerrillas select an unarmed businessman from a plane they have hijacked and, merely to hurry up the business of forcing the release of six of their murdering compatriots, stand the man in the doorway of the plane and shoot him in the back. This evening there are two explosions in Birmingham pubs. Seventeen people are killed. An Irish voice gave an 11 minute warning, but so far the Provisionals have not claimed responsibility.

Saturday, November 23rd

An evening out with Nigel and Jude.1 We met Nigel at his gallery in Sloane Gardens.

I found his current exhibition quite baffling. Why is it that modern art should make you feel so clumsy for not understanding it? It’s a curious feeling of inadequacy to stand and look at a roomful of carefully-hung, expensively-lit objects, which someone considers paying nearly a thousand pounds for, and to find them as meaningful as a tin of anchovies.

But Nigel would probably counter this by saying that he has an exhibition of tins of anchovies opening only next week.

Monday, November 23th

Saw John C for the first time in many weeks – we did a couple of voice-overs