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1 A versatile actor and writer who I’d met through David Leland. He appeared regularly in Ripping Yarns, as well as in a variety of roles in Life of Brian.

1 Gung-ho US war film of 1967, directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson. It was marketed with the tag-line, ‘Train Them! Excite Them! Arm Them! … Then Turn Them Loose on the Nazis.’

1 Mr Praline was the name John gave to his man in the plastic mac.

1 Director of Photography – also for, among others, Bugsy Malone, Mississippi Burning and The Truman Show.

2 Friend of Terry J’s from Oxford and another of our rep. company.

1 At this time, church incense smoke was regularly used by directors to create a diffused light. Later it was proved to be dangerous to health.

1 Chris Langham, another of our rep. company and partner of Sue Jones-Davis who played Judith..

2 Python super-fan from Chicago, who had been given various parts in the movie. He later wrote one of the first histories of Python.

1 In Mandy’s kitchen, in which Judith tells the revolutionaries to stop talking and do something about it.

1 Robin’s Nest, starring Richard O’Sullivan, was a big ITV comedy hit.

1 My new accountant.

1 Crisp (1843–1919) bought Friar Park in 1895. He, like George, was a keen horticulturalist. Unlike George, he was a fully paid up member of the Royal Microscopical Society.

2 My mother was born and brought up on Hernes Estate, which borders Friar Park.

3 Extremely English upper-class daughter of former Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith; leading figure in Liberal politics.

1 The Cranston Street Hall, then head office of the Edinburgh Parks and Burials Department, was where he and I first performed together at the Festival in 1964. It was the first time in my life that I had the slightest intimation that there might be a living from comedy.

2 The box, as used in ‘Across the Andes by Frog’, was one of the props to enliven our book-signing tour.

1 Julian had assembled an early working cut of the film, more or less on his own.

1 Producer of the early Amnesty shows.

2 Modelmaker and partner of Julian Doyle.

3 The expanding Davidson family.

1 A Christian pressure group.

1979

Monday, January 1st

1979 comes in cold. Very cold. Minus 7° centigrade.

Walk across the crackling snow to a party at neighbours. He’s in advertising and has gathered a collection of ‘hangover killers’ from an article in The Guardian, which he’s displayed like some alcoholic’s stall at a Bring and Buy. Each with instructions. So you can have Fernet Branca, Bovril and vodka – known as a Russian Bison – Prairie Oysters – raw eggs are laid on – and a drink which Kingsley Amis christened’The Final Solution’: one spoonful of ground coffee, one spoonful of sugar wrapped in a slice of lemon, sucked and, in midmastication, swept through with a tumblerful of brandy. I tried it and I think I blame it for a consequent feeling of elation and a loss of all sense of time.

After a Final Solution and a couple of Buck’s Fizzes, we slithered across to the Guedallas for lunch. Present were the Maliks, the Taylors. (Mary, very jolly, told us the latest Jeremy Thorpe stories. What’s the similarity between Jeremy Thorpe and William the Conqueror? They’re both fucking Normans.)1

Thursday, January 4th

Jimmy Gilbert rings to tell me his suggestion for the new director for the Yarns. Turns out it’s Alan J W Bell2 – the PA who should have been a director, who came in to help out with Yarns when we were arranging audience screenings. I’d forgotten about him – but he fits the bill rather well. He knows the Yarns, I know him, he’s keen on film and, not identified with any particular programme so far, he could be very keen to make his mark.

Lunch at the San Carlo in Highgate to meet ‘fellow speakers’ at the Barclays Bank Northern Managers’binge next Thursday week. I’m doing it because the Highgate manager, Brian Kemp, is one of the organisers and is a bright, humorous, intelligent sort of bloke – met through Graham