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Graeme Garden, who’s also speaking, is there, which avoids the conversation becoming utterly stodgy. The other bank representatives look very English macho, rugby club rednecks, and not really the sort of people I would spend more than 12 minutes with if possible. My heart sinks as Brian (whose wife is, rather neatly, called Judith) tells me that there will only be two or three women there so we can be as filthy as we like.

Graeme is going back to theatre acting in the next couple of weeks. He’s going to do Charles Dyer’s Rattle of a Simple Man for Johnny Lynn and the Cambridge Theatre Company. He’s only going on tour though. He hated the West End run of Unvarnished Truth and claims that the provinces provide much more enthusiastic audiences.

Saturday, January 6th

A party at Anne Henshaw’s.

Talk to Richard Loncraine,1 who says the BBC never asked him about directing the Yarns, and he would now almost certainly have been available.

Loncraine says he would have liked to have worked on the Yarns, which, he said with characteristic directness, always scored eight out of ten with him. He felt they all peaked at a certain point and the endings were a little disappointing. I agree. I don’t think Terry and I ever quite got the measure of the 30-minute format. We always had too much to cram in.

Monday, January 8th

Alison2 finishes typing ‘Whinfrey’s Last Case’ and I collect it at lunchtime. Most garages are closed and the roads probably full of cars, like me, wasting petrol looking for a garage that’s open. Plenty of petrol in Bantry Bay, however, where an unloading tanker blew up killing fifty people.

At four, in to the BBC to take the script and meet the new director and executive producer.

The talk is all positive. They are expecting a second script by January 17th and hardly a word is written yet. But at the same time they seem curiously uncertain as to their intentions. When I ask them what they’ll do with these three Yarns it’s as if they’ve never thought about it before.

Tuesday, January 9th

Write in the afternoon. Pleased to be away from ‘Whinfrey’ and on to something with a little more soul – and a good part for yours truly – namely the ‘Golden Gordon’ northern football saga. I do hope it works. I will dedicate it to the Meridien Hotel, Monastir, if it does – for that’s where it began.

In the evening Willy and I join another 37,985 people at a chilly Highbury Stadium to watch the replay of Arsenal v Wednesday’s Cup Tie. High up in the stands we get a good clear view and for once Sheffield give their supporters plenty to be proud of. They tackle fast and accurately, mark, move and even shoot much more tightly and efficiently than Arsenal. And just before half-time they score.

Willy and I drink our Thermosful of hot chocolate at half-time, well pleased. Wednesday even manage to hold out in the second half. We cannot bear to look at the clock. Terrific excitement – as gripping as any theatrical event I’ve ever seen. With four minutes to go, Arsenal hustle an equaliser. Everyone around us is up on their feet. But Wednesday survive what should have been Arsenal’s surge of confidence until the end, and also through 30 minutes of extra time. So, still 1-1 and another replay in sight.

Willy and I feel like kings as we join the sea of people flooding down the neat residential streets, away from the ground. Passing groups of 10- to 18-year-olds waiting for ‘Old Bill’ to go so they can have a fight with Wednesday’s equally pugnacious 10- to 18-year-olds.

Wednesday, January 10th

An unexpected boost, when Alan Bell rings to tell me how much he likes ‘Whinfrey’s Last Stand’. Syd Lotterby, the executive producer,1 finds the script funny and the only criticism is from Jimmy Gilbert about the ‘non-ending’.

I take a pinch of salt and breathe a sigh of relief. Now we can go ahead. The work will be hard – the two new Yarns will have to be filmed back-to-back throughout March.

Thursday, January 11th

Round to a buffet supper at J Cleese’s. John, who starts next week on a set of six new Fawlty