Diaries 1969-1979_ The Python Years - Michael Palin [344]
Monday, August 13th
Try to make farewells as quick and impermanent as possible, for I know Al will miss all the life at the coach house.
This has been a great children’s holiday, and they have been generally easy company too. Though perhaps my list of books read – one Anthony Powell, ninety pages of a Steinbeck, fifty pages of a Levinson work in progress – testifies to the way they dominated the holiday. I feel good, though, and I am looking forward to home and writing.
The New York-London flight passes unmemorably. It’s efficient and notable only for the sight of very high seas and white caps and breaking waves on the approach to Cornwall. I’ve never seen the sea in such turmoil.
Tuesday, August 14th
Within a quarter hour of arrival at Gospel Oak, the phone contacts begin. A series of quite important calls. Bryon Parkin from BBC Enterprises calls to say that ‘his colleagues’ at TV Centre have assured me that there would be insurmountable problems from unions in the way of a theatrical release for the Ripping Yarns.
What a complete Beeb man is Parkin. He seems to have about as much drive as Rachel’s tricycle and has consistently failed to come up with the goods on anything I’ve asked him.
Alan Bell calls to confirm dates for the three new Yarns – beginning Monday, September 24th at 9.25. He tells me that John H-D has viewed the three shows and recommended laugh tracks on them all. Alan Bell softens this other bit of BBC recalcitrance by saying that he, too, watching them on TV, felt the audience helped. Back to square one there. But, again, I don’t feel angry or even disappointed. The holiday helped.
Terry Gilliam tells me that Eric was so unhappy with the Python sound-track album André and I had produced, that he is working on a replacement. The objection was, I’m told, basically to the live album, audience idea. I feel not bitter, but just frustrated. I was never wholly keen on the live album, Eric was away and quite inaccessible for quick decisions and Warner’s wanted the album quick. So my work was wasted. I’m quite glad it at least stirred other Pythons into some sort of action, and I shall send back £1,000 of the £1,500 fee I took for my work on it. An episode in my creative career that I shall happily forget.
Thursday, August 16th
The jet-lagged Palin household (still living in US time) finally rose around ten. I see from the paper that the white-capped waves which I noticed on the approaches to Cornwall on Tuesday morning have so far claimed seventeen lives. As we sat rather comfortably in our First Class lounge, dabbing Cooper’s Oxford on dull croissants, the yachtsmen in the Fastnet Race were direcdy below us, fighting huge storms, forty-foot waves and the worst conditions the race has ever run into.
My cold is still heavy, but after a morning’s work on letters and phone calls I drive down in sunshine and scudding cloud to Neal’s Yard.
Eric arrives heavily bearded. His land in the Var has been razed to the ground by a forest fire, poor bugger. Graham is here too, and Terry G. We listen to the ‘new’ album – which is the stereo soundtrack without laughs, which evidently all the Pythons prefer. I must say the selection sounds lifeless, but Eric and Graham’s ad-libbed links are funny.
At the end, all present OK the new album, but without enthusiasm. André does not look happy at the prospect of working for two more days – and probably nights – to complete this one. Eric and Graham will have to supervise the work. I refuse.
Friday, August 17th
Opening day for Brian in New York