Diaries 1969-1979_ The Python Years - Michael Palin [268]
Monday, February 6th
Must begin work today on this year’s Yarns – as much as possible to be written in the two months before we leave for Tunisia.
The great imponderable is TJ’s time. He valiantly underestimates the extent of his directing involvement on the new film – he was going to run the shot-list off in a couple of days, it’ll now take a couple of weeks. So I am preparing for the worst – which is to write the stories myself and rely on Terry for heavy checking. That way it won’t be a brake on the work and it will be a great bonus if he can find a clear week away from the film.
Having decided this, also decided to try and continue my last year’s effort to work before breakfast.
To be honest there was little enthusiasm for the work. In the back of my mind lies a distinct reluctance to work on more films for the BBC. Is my reluctance something to do with the bland reaction to the Yarns’? Is it that the Yarns form looks dull compared to the new film, which will take up much of the year?
It’s all those things, plus an unresolved yearning to do something a little more serious – or a new direction at least. It could be the novel … it could be a film. The more involved I become with the film world (via Shepperton) the more tempted I am by its freedom. I don’t want to get stifled by BBC thinking.
Well, all this jumble of vague hopes and dissatisfactions was holding back my progress this morning. I wrote, but wrote mechanically – the sheer joie-de-vivre of embarking on a new series was sadly lacking. I wish I knew what I really wanted to do.
Tuesday, February 7th
Down to Soho to meet David Dodd1 at the Falcon pub on the corner of Lisle and Wardour Streets. David says he knew of it before – his father, who was Inspector of Police eventually, was in the 1930s a London copper in the days when Soho really lived up to its naughty image. Vice rings abounded and the Falcon was a meeting place for pimps and peddlers. Mr Dodd, Constable Dodd, used to sit in the corner behind his Sporting Chronicle and smoke a pipe and clock his suspects as they came in.
David claims he only knows one man in Guyana who is faithful to his wife. Everybody else, from the PM downwards, is balling on the side. Only the men, it seems; the women marry and stay at home – their side of the marital contract honoured – but the men are at it like rabbits, all over the Caribbean.
David said he had given words of caution to Judith Hart, the Minister for Overseas Development, who had recently been in Guyana and had addressed a meeting of Guyanese with statesmanlike words about nurturing democracy, guarding the fragile plant which is growing here, etc, etc. David said all this meant nothing – but the £10 million aid cheque she was in Guyana to sign did.
Hearing David I can’t help but feel that ideals wither and die in the Tropics. Our culture, our western culture, especially the Protestant form, becomes irrelevant in the heat.
Thursday, February 9th
Gerry Donovan pulls out three of my upper teeth.2 All very neat and quick (G Donovan goes up in my estimation for turning out to be a fan of Stay Hungry3 – my favourite movie of 1977).
Saturday, February 11th
Take Tom, Willy and Louise Guedalla to see Chinese New Year decorations and we eat an excellent meal at the Dumpling Inn in Soho. Louise tells me that, according to her mother, ‘some of the nastiest people in the world live in Soho’. I must say, such was the ignorance about the place when I was young, that my parents would probably see me as little more than a child pornographer for taking three children to Saturday lunch in Gerrard Street. Now, of course, it’s full of very well-turned-out Chinese entrepreneurs and sleek Euro-tourists.
Tuesday, February 14th
Write a lyric for the Shirley Bassey-style Brian song which I want André and Dave to have a go at – just to see whether it works. They have a choir at their disposal for a session, and actually asked me if I had anything I wanted them to do. Should be interesting.
Yield to Willy’s insistence and take all three