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Tuesday, January 22nd

The national situation looks depressing. No deal with the miners or with the railwaymen. The restrictions on lighting, TV and the Government’s SOS (Switch Off Something) campaign, have now become quite accepted aspects of national life. The three-day week is still in operation.

Thursday, January 24th

I was still talking to the man from Coverite Asphalters on the roof at 11.30 when I remembered I should have been at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, for a press party to launch our two-week ‘season’ at the end of February.

Eventually reached Theatre Royal by cab at 11.55. Monty Python, not over-announced, on the outside. At least we have our name on paper, if not in lights. (When will anyone ever have their name in lights again?) Inside, a box-office without a queue. Up the wide staircase to the Circle bar, which is of the proportions of Adam’s library at Kenwood House, with four huge Corinthian columns dwarfing a motley collection of about thirty press folk.

Nicholas de Jongh of The Guardian, looking tubby and rather windswept, moved amongst us with an uncertain, rather indulgent smile and a notebook, asking us for witty things to say. At least Eric had something reasonable (which appeared next morning in the paper). He was feeding his son Carey at the time, and replied ‘It was all right for Oscar Wilde, being gay. He didn’t have to feed babies, he had both arms free for being witty.’ N de J: ‘But Oscar Wilde had children.’ EI: ‘Trust The Guardian to know that.’

Sunday, January 27th, Abbotsley

Today, a pleasant lazy day. Thomas and I made a bonfire, we sawed some wood and played football and went off on an archaeological trip around Abbotsley. Thomas had uncovered pieces of old china in the garden, and pursued this new interest quite keenly during the day. A joint of beef and Yorkshire pud for lunch. I don’t think I’ve ever not enjoyed a Sunday at Abbotsley – it’s one of those unchanging, unexceptional, but unfailingly satisfying institutions, when the whole pace of life slows to a comfortable, convivial saunter.

Home at 8.30 to find the plasterer, Bill Berry, at work. Bill Berry is quite a character. He’s a tiling man by trade, and is at present relaying a marble floor at London Airport’s Terminal One. He’s done Buckingham Palace and the National Gallery as well, he told me.

He’s always coming out with strange non sequiturs. You’ll be talking to him about terrazza tiles and he’ll suddenly say ‘Croup,’ with an air of great finality. You look around bewildered. ‘Croup,’ he repeats, even more positively, and points at Thomas, ‘That’s what he’s got.’

Friday February 1st

Drive into town for a meeting with New Musical Express, who want us to review the week’s new singles for them. Their offices in Long Acre are securely locked, but after much bell-ringing, tall, rangy features editor T Tyler leads me through deserted corridors up to an eyrie high in the building, where various members of NME staff sit in candlelit gloom.

They are all fairly cock-a-hoop over press reaction to their Marianne Faithfull interview, published yesterday, in which Marianne said quite quotable little things about how she’d slept with three of the Stones to find out which one she liked best.

In the evening Helen and I and Mary and Edward went to see Truffaut’s Day for Night – a film about filming, which left me with the kind of happy escapist pleasure that old Hollywood comedies used to. Afterwards we ate at Rugantino’s, where I had brains for the first time. They tasted like roe, soft and spongy. It’s funny, one can happily eat a cow’s liver or a sheep’s kidney, but eating brains seems to encroach on dangerous, mystical and spiritual areas. Like eating roast mind.

Friday, February 8th

An election has been announced for February 28th – depressing news, for the Tories will probably win and they don’t deserve to. Heath has been stubborn to the extreme with the miners, who are now to start on a full strike. He was elected