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I drive into Burford for an hour’s lunch break. Go to a quiet Wadworths pub, where I am recognised and get a free half of bitter in exchange for some signatures.

Back to the Bell. Put my typewriter down, as it were, at 6.30. A thoroughly satisfactory eight-hour writing day. Four thousand words completed (half a normal week’s target in one day). Greatly enthused, I take a walk in the bleak and chilly darkness down to the bridge to look at the Evenlode.

Thursday, November 24th, Charlbury

Discovery, at lunchtime, of the thatched village of Great Tew, tucked away in the steep fold of a valley, about ten miles north of here. Complete with tiny, mullioned-windowed village pub, the Falkland Arms. A front room, with a roaring fire. A crusty old gent, a real relic of the past, held forth, and in the middle of all this – as if I hadn’t had a surfeit of images of traditional English life – it began to snow.

An icy cold afternoon, though, which made my warm bay window vantage point in the Bell all the more attractive. It must have soothed my mind into a productive state, for today I became deeply absorbed in a confrontation of Avery with Annie and Sarah – really absorbed – and I finished just before seven with 5,000 words done – 15,000 since I have been at the hotel.

Friday, November 25th, Charlbury

I lunched in the bar of the Bell for the first time – an agreeable stone-flagged floor, beams and a big open fireplace. It pleased me to think that nearly a third (for that is the extent of my achievement this week) of the book was written directly above this room.

Wednesday, November 30th

Just after three o’clock, the novel comes quietly to a halt. It’s finished and quite acceptably so.

I christen the book ‘A Bit of a Break’, but I don’t know if that will stick.

Thursday, December 1st

Began reading the novel through a little before ten and finished at a quarter to seven in the evening. I reckon about eight hours’ solid reading. I made notes – generally about passages which were too dense, complicated or repetitive. What the book needs, basically, is clarification. The beginning is quite jolly, the middle is soggy and tends to lose its way, and the end moves fast to quite a neat conclusion.

Friday, December 2nd

Finished the novel just in time, for this morning we have the first meeting of the Pythons to begin the lead-up to the movie which starts, all being well, in April.

John Goldstone addresses us first. John, now firmly established as producer of the next movie, wishes us to help him out in raising the loot. So far the four million dollars has not been forthcoming. John virtually rules out private investors, and Michael White says there is no way he can lay his hands on the money we require – about eight times as much as we were asking for on the Holy Grail. So we are looking for a friendly American major to finance the film and take distribution, etc, etc.

John G says Warner’s have all read it and loved it (which I can’t believe), but a bit of Python flag waving would not go amiss. To this end he suggests an interview with Variety, Hollywood Reporter and other magazines which land softly on air-conditioned office desks in Burbank.

Eric is appalled by the idea. (I’ll grant Eric that – his attitude to the press is one of the few that has remained consistent over the last five years!) He suggests putting an ad in Variety aimed at showing American producers what an extraordinary world-wide force Python is. John suggests a byline – ‘You were late for World War One, late for World War Two … Don’t be late for …’

The next leading question is where we should rewrite in January. For Eric and John, writing in England is out of the question. John likes to edge all his comments with a geriatric appeal – ‘I don’t know about you others, but I’m nearly 40 and I need more … (money, sunshine, sleep, reading, etc, etc)’.

Eric suggests Barbados – which sounds lovely – but both the Terrys look miserable. Graham, as usual, says nothing. I question whether