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Today I am going with TJ to the BBC to see a rough cut of’Across the Andes’.

It didn’t strike me as as funny as it should be, but he liked a lot of the shooting and the acting. Terry J’s main worry was my part. I think I’m not at my best with sub-Cleesian public school aggressives – and Snetterton is a middleman figure, not extraordinary in himself. TJ feels that the prominence of Snetterton should be built up more – putting him squarely and confidently as the centrepiece of the film. Then at least he would become less of an irritating attempt at someone being irritating.

Wednesday, November lyth

Film writing with Terry. He’s still not producing much – what with helping his brother Nigel move, etc – but today we have a good read-through and work on with the Three Wise Men. Squash together at five. Two games all.

Drive over to Kingston for dinner with Nigel Pegram and April O.1

Nigel as dapperly charming as ever; someone it’s very difficult not to like. April was telling me quite extraordinarily Pythonesque stories of her neighbours. She has a woman who came in and asked April if she would go and sniff her house! She meant it literally too – she was worried about some smell in the house and people were coming round. Also of a neighbour who knows King Olaf of Norway, who is apparently a compulsive farter. This is well known and hosts are now prepared for it and cover up for him in all kinds of ingenious ways.

Thursday, November 18th

A writing meeting of all the team this afternoon. John and Graham had written little and were not as pleased with themselves as before. Eric had done more thinking than writing – whereas Palin and Jones had produced a mighty wodge of at least 25 minutes of material. So reading was not made easier by the fact that there was a total imbalance of contributors. Fortunately Terry Gilliam had taken time off from editing at Shepperton to be at the meeting and his generous and noisy laughter helped a great deal and, by the end, we’d acquitted ourselves quite respectably

The sketches, or fragments, which work least well at the moment are those which deal directly with the events or characters described in the Gospels. I wrote a sketch about Lazarus going to the doctors with ‘post-death depression’, which, as I read it, sounded as pat and neat and predictable as a bad university revue sketch. The same fate befell John and G’s sketch about Joseph trying to tell his mates how his son Jesus was conceived. The way the material is developing it looks as though the peripheral world is the most rewarding, with Jesus unseen and largely unheard, though occasionally in the background.

John and Graham are troubled by the lack of a storyline. At the moment, after only about seven or eight days’ writing, I feel it’s the least of our worries and that we should carry on writing and stockpiling funny material to be fitted into a storyline later. ‘But we only have another thirty-two and a half days’ writing, little plum,’ says John, consulting his diary.

Friday, November 19th

In the same week as I describe in Melody Maker the pain and joys of filming Jabberwocky on a rubbish tip at Shepperton, I find myself filming Jabberwocky on a rubbish tip at … Shepperton.

Nearly four months after my first shot, I’m being made up as Dennis again, with the blood, the dirt and the fringe – only this time we can’t afford a makeup girl on set, so I have to go up to South Hill Park to see Maggie, who makes me up before breakfast.

At Shepperton we find a haggard and unshaven cameraman – played by Julian Doyle. The three of us make our way to the rubbish tip. Julian, by this time, has found some ends of film to use up. We retrieve a chair from the tip, which Terry G stands on. I climb under my shield and drag myself across the dirt patch while Julian squirts smoke around us. A lonely, surreal little scene, which Film ’76 should have captured.

Sunday, November 21st

A new thing in Hampstead trendiness, a croissant delivery service. A long-haired young man with brightly-painted Citroen Dyane out in Oak Village