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Decide to call in at Stanton St John as I’m early and, if I’ve learnt one thing from regular debating at Oxford and Cambridge it’s to avoid the pre-match meal. So I find myself stumbling, in the dense and unaccustomed darkness, up the driveway of Robert H’s little cottage. I see a light is on and, sure enough, Robert is inside, with a bottle of wine warming on the mantelpiece, a small wood fire, Radio Three simmering away with some piano concerto, going about his business of being a writer.

I do like and admire Robert’s self-contained world. I couldn’t honestly see myself sitting alone in a cold Oxfordshire cottage, without carpets, midst a slight smell of damp, working. It seems so cut off. Cut off from my sort of life, I suppose.

We talk over his proposal to write an official Python biography, which was turned down by the chaps – for the moment anyway. I don’t think people could face any more interviews about the past. But I will press for Robert to be made chronicler of the Brian struggle. I think there is a useful book to be done on the whole controversy and its various manifestations.1

Arrive at the Union at 8.10. The usual collection of rather smug, self-important little poseurs and meek women with them who look much more interesting.

I rise to speak at 10.35 – having sat for two and a quarter hours on the hard bench. Peter Sissons of ITN sat next to me and I whispered to him as ten o’clock struck that this is the moment when I always decide never to do another debate.

Walk round the Radcliffe Square for old times’ sake.

Home by five past one. Read Decline and Fall. Asleep by two.

Saturday, December 8th

Drive up to a party in Hampstead at half past nine.

I get talking to a lady – a forceful, well-preserved middle-aged lady (who might have been Mrs Foot) – who knew all about the Gospel Oak Redevelopment Scheme. I asked her if it was just a combination of a genuine desire to house as many people as possible as decently as possible, as quickly as possible, and to do this according to new Corbusier-esque principles which the architects had eagerly espoused.

She said that the scheme was a result of these two ‘forces’, but added, most positively, a third – corruption. T Dan Smith of Newcastle was just unlucky to be caught out, she reckoned – the corruption in awarding of contracts in schemes was widespread throughout Britain, and Bruno Schlaffenberg – the planner of Gospel Oak, who once said ‘Ze English must learn to live in flats’—was not immune.

Later in the evening I was introduced to James Cameron, one of my great living heroes. He has only been out of a long hospital spell for three days. Like Michael Foot, he seems to be cracking up physically, but on great form mentally. He tried to write in hospital, but reckoned it was impossible – ‘Every ten minutes people are coming to stick something up your bum.’

We talked of Malcolm Muggeridge, and Cameron, with his peculiar, hissing, rather blurred delivery (caused, I’m told, by having to work hard to keep his teeth in), said he hadn’t seen the interview but ‘One must remember that Malcolm was, for many years, a promiscuous, drunken bum.’ He said this cheerfully, with no malice.

I was able to express my admiration for the man and his work. He brushed the compliment aside – ‘… Well, ten years ago perhaps!1

Monday, December 10th

A run is a must today. Rewarded with warm, refreshing sunshine. To lunch at the Barque and Bite with Ken Stephinson, BBC Manchester producer who wants me to do the Great Railway Journey with him.

I like Stephinson immediately. He’s easy company and straightforward. He knows what he wants – he wants to make this journey the best of the lot (and there are others written and presented by such luminaries as Ludovic Kennedy, Julian Pettifer, Michael Frayn and so on). He has ambitious plans for shooting – and clearly loves film and filming. It seems hardly likely to be unpleasant work, but whereas he says all the other presenters