David's Blog

Island Paradise - 22/06/2008

Hello, blogpeople everywhere.

Susan and I have just spent thirteen nights in Mauritius, in a hotel rated by a leading Swiss guidebook as the second best in the world.  It cost us less than two thousand pounds, including drinks, laundry, drinks, massages, drinks and something else that I can't quite...oh yes, that's it. Drinks.

Yes, after 44 years hard work at the wordface, I have at last had a bit of a freebie.  I now hope that the London bus syndrome will kick in, and there'll be two more very quickly.

Of course it's well known that there's no such thing as a free lunch, and there is certainly no such thing as ten free nights in a luxury hotel, with three more at a heavily discounted rate.  I had to work for my supper.

The hotel is Le Prince Maurice Hotel on the East Coast of the island, and we were there for the judging of the Prince Maurice Prize for Romantic Fiction. I was one of six judges, the others being Joanne Harris, Marina Lewycka, Sarah Waters, Simon Armitage and that well-known expert on romantic fiction, Irvine 'Mills and Boon'  Welsh.  We deliberated under the keen chairmanship of Tim Lott, and were joined by three Mauritian judges and our patron, who on this occasion was no less a person than Richard E Grant.  Yes, this is quite a prestigious prize.

Mauritius is largely trilingual.  I've always wanted to use that word, and have never had a chance before.  The basic language is Creole, most of their writing is done in French, and the official language is English.  The prize is for books in French and in English in alternate years.  The aim is to encourage a local literary culture in both languages, and to this end we had various other duties to perform between the cocktails and the sun loungers.

On our first day we spent the morning reading short stories written by Mauritian schoolchildren and the afternoon judging them, a task which we took very seriously.  We were a little taken aback by the content of the stories, which were full of car crashes, deaths, suicides, divorces, arguing parents and drunken fathers.  Where was the paradise island that we had been led to expect?

In the evening we were driven to the British High Commissioner's house where we were welcomed at some length by the Director of the British Council, an amiable man with the suitably British Council name of Simon Ingram Hill.  I daresay he will figure, thinly disguised, in at least six novels during the next two years.

The second day was as traumatic as any I have experienced in the last twenty years.  I had to do workshops in two schools.  Now my father was a deputy head master and taught maths.  My mother also taught maths.  My father's father was a headmaster and taught maths.  My mother's father was a headmaster and taught maths.  My paternal grandmother taught maths.  My maternal grandmother taught maths.  I am petirified even by the thought of facing a class of children.

I have to admit that I had done no great preparation, and at the first school, a girls' school, I was told that due to the comings and goings of large numbers of girls, a workshop would be inappropriate, a talk with questions would be best.  The school, the Sharma Jugdambi School in the small town of Goodlands, had contributed more stories to the competition that any other school in Mauritius  

I decided to make the event as interactive as possible, so after a short talk I asked for questions.  Nobody had told me that as well as being almost universally pretty and charming, Mauritian schoolgirls are very very shy.  There were hardly any questions, though one girl did ask which was moire important to a creative writer - observation of the imagination?  A very good question, but my answer 'You need both' still left me with about 50 minutes to go.

Then I was asked to sit in the audience, the curtains on the stage of the gymnasium parted, and I was treated to a performance of the wrestling scene from As You Like It, in English and in full costume.  The costumes were great, the physical comedy was superb but I couldn't hear a word as the shy girls spoke so quietly.

 The event limped to its conclusion, and I was painfully aware that this was a missed opportunity, and I had rather failed this splendid school.

Still, I would do better in the afternoon at the boys' school, Bell Village School, no doubt a charming little village school in a picturesque corner of the island. 

Alas for my hopes.  It's a tough school in a tough corner of the capital, Port Louis.  The teacher told me that not one boy was studying literature beyond the third year.  All they were interested in was football, and two teams - Manchester United and Liverpool.  I would be talking about literature to ninety boys who weren't interested - not surprisingly, perhaps, since the set book was the Mayor of Casterbridge.  This, in Mauritius? 

At first my talk went well, they listened and laughed, and jeered cheerfully when I told them I was a Tottenham Hotspur supporter.  But my planned talk suddenly seemed very short, and there was an hour still to go.  The boys were also shy about asking questions.  Their master stepped in to help, but he had a low voice and when I asked him to repeat his qyestion, the boys whooped.  Clearly his low voice was a school joke.  He stood up and repeated his question.  I said., 'You'll have to do more than just stand up.  You'll have to come closer.'  More whooping.  In the end we approached each other, and I made my fatal mistake.  I am just not one of life's teachers.  I am still a fourth former at heart.  I said, 'Shall we dance?'  There was no way back after that.

I was asked one amazing question, 'What do you think about life?'  My reply was 'It's a good thing.'  The master, perhaps seeking revenge, said 'Do you really think life is a good thing for millions in the third world?'  By now it was almost impossible for me to hear the questions or the boys to hear my answers, so great was the noise.  The master sensibly abandoned ship, I struggled on, and at last the ordeal was over.  The bell was answered with a violent stampede.  The master was nicer than I deserved and said it had been a lively discussion.

The rest of the week was much more calm.  We went to the British Council, where we had another speech (well more the same speech really) by Mr Simon Ingram Hill, and we took part in a very civilised debate about the novel and ate delicious canapes of curried meat, curried fish, curried shellfish, curried vegetables and curried eggs. 

On the Saturday, the final judging took place.  We had narrowed the books down to a final three in London, and now we sat debating in the only floating restaurant in the Indian Ocean.  It was quite windy and I later made up a story about the French writers the previous year dining in a gale and having their starters in Mauritius and their desserts in Madagascar.

The winner was James Meek for his book, 'We Are Now Beginning our Descent' , although there were votes for the other two finalists, Ewan Morrison for 'Swung' and Salley Vickers for 'The Other Side of You'.  The three books were all so different that it was like deciding between a pumice stone, a rabbit and an umbrella.

After a lengthy prize giving ceremony including another speech (well, more the same speech really) by Mr Simon Ingram Hill, there was a seven course gala dinner.  Susan and I sat at the same table as Simon and his wife and  in the unlikely event of his having time to read this blog I must emphasise that they are lovely, charming people.

This was the end of the events and it was time to sit on the beach and relax.  It promptly rained for three days.  However, our last three days were spent in lovely sunshine.  It was delightful to sit on the beach under thatched shelters, and sip thatched cocktails in the thatched bar.  We were discovering the main problem about touring in Mauritius.  The hotels are so superb that hardly anybody explores outside them.

There is doubtless quite a lot to explore and we hope to go back one day, though whether we will ever be able to afford the full cost of the magnificent Le Prince Maurice is doubtful.  We had learned quite a lot about Mauritius.  It may be an island paradise for tourists, but there are major problems for the inhabitants, and they are very similar to our problems.  They are the problems of the early 21st century - the rising cost of fuel, the rising cost of food, the increasing scarcity of fish, the breakdown of discipline in schools, increasing dependency on alcohol etcetera etcetera.

I forgot to mention that eleven boys from Bell Village School contributed stories to the competition, but only four admitted it.  Such is the effect of peer pressure.

But there wasa lovely postscript.  I have had an email from one of the boys, who has discovered my website and gave his name as 'Not a T Hotspur Fan'!  He apologised for the stampede and said that I mustn't think that all Mauritian boys are hooligans.

He also said that I had told them that the best thing to write from was experience, and that I had talked about my novel 'Sex and Other Changes', in which a married couiple both change sex and marry each other the other way round.  Was that from experience?  I think he'll go far.  (That reminds me of the time I told my mother that a writer must write about what he knows.  She wouldn't speak to me after she'd read the brothel scene in one of my novels)

Thank you, Not a T Hotspur Fan, for writing to me and making me believe that my visit to your school did have some effect at least. I suspect you must be one of the secret writers of Bell Village School.  I hope you have a very successful life and meet a lovely lady and become Mr and Mrs Not a T Hotspur Fan and live happy...well, no, not ever after, because we weren't judging that sort of romantic novel.

I have to report that the judges all got on extremely well and had a great time.  Irvine wants to arrange reunions and Sarah thinks we should hire ourselves out to judge the major prizes.  And Irvine paid me a lovely compliment.  It began 'David, over these last days I've been really impressed by your..'  How do you think it ended.  'Wit'? 'Charm?' 'Generosity'? 'Literary judgement'? 'Literary brilliance'? 

No. It ended 'capacity for alcohol.'  Oh well.  No, actually I felt rather flattered, that coming from Irvine of all people.

Another Apology - 30/05/2008

My very dear blog readers,

I can only apologise for the non-appearance of a blog in May.  I am glad to say that this is due entirely to my being very busy.  I hope to have an exciting announcement very soon. Be patient, fans.  I will do a new blog before the end of the week beginning June 16th.

I know.  Gordon Brown, the price of fuel, and now this.  I feel for you.  I really do.

Words beginning with F - 11/04/2008

Hi there, bloggers.

I did it.  I said 'Hi'.  It's a word I find very difficult.  I'm a hello man,  increasingly out of place in the world of 'hi' and 'hiya'.  I daresay in the end the more prestigious reaches of our education system will be known as 'hiya education'.

I have some random thoughts to share with you since I last blogged - a disgracefully long time ago - and in an effort to pretend that there was some attempt at a theme I decided to link them through words beginning with f.  Hence the title.  And now in two paragraphs I haven't used a single word beginning with f.  Get a grip, Nobbs.

O.K.  Failure.  My visit to Birmingham on March the 3rd was a dreadful failure.  I was booked to give a talk at an exhibition at MacArts, an arts centre in Birmingham.  This was in connection with an exhibition by Alistair Grant, who invented a character called King Shoddy who presided over a kingdom of rubbish as Britain sank into the sea in a tide of rubbish.  The exhibition was to a certain extent at least inspired by my Grot sequences in the second book and the second series of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin.  The idea was that they would show two episodes of the second series of the sitcom, with my talk sandwiched in between.  I was looking forward to it.

I presented myself at the arts centre at six p.m. to meet a young lady called Alex Boyd.  She had gone home.  I was somewhat miffed.  Also neither of the two charming young ladies on reception had even heard of my talk.  I was remiffed.  I asked, somewhat tartly, if I might see somebody who knew something. 

They fetched the duty manageress, who said, 'What's your name again?'  'David Nobbs,' I replied.  She responded with just the words every author longs to hear after plying his trade for forty four years.  'It doesn't ring a bell,' she said.

 I was becoming uneasy.  I apologised to the ladies on reception for my slight tartness.  Could this in some way be my fault?  Had I forgotten that they had sent an email cancelling the talk?

My wife and I sat in the canteen, nursing cups of tea and coffee that we didn't want.  After quite a long time the duty manageress returned with a very tall man who bent down till his face was level with mine and said, quietly and sympathetically, 'Your talk is on April the 3rd, Mr Nobbs.'   My first really serious senior moment, and a failure indeed.

What would have put the tin lid on it would have been if I'd forgotten to go on April the 3rd, but I didn't.  Everything went very well, but that doesn't make a story.  Only the failures make good stories to comedy writers.

Next f word.  Folly.  And also farce.  Since the last Nobbblog you will all no doubt have read of the unfortunate daughter of Earl Spencer.  This lady desired to see her favourite football team, Chelsea.  The chauffeur was summoned, and off they set.  He entered 'Stamford Bridge' in his Satnav, and off they went to Stamford Bridge, a small village in Yorkshire, quite pretty buit singularly lacking in Premiership football matches.

O.K., one can understand that he didn't realise that there were two Stamford Bridges, but wouldn't you have thought that one of them would have noticed, on the long journey from Northamptonshire, that they were going North, and that London is not North of Northamptonshire?  You would have thought that she would have said, 'It's left for Leeds and right for York, are you absolutely sure we're going in the right direction?'  But, you see, he's her driver so she would trust him in matters of driving, and Satnav is technological so it must be right.  Much of the world of computer failure is explained by this sad story - the machine is only as good as the person who programs it.  My own fear - another important f word - is that farce of this kind renders poor comedy writers impotent - we just can't beat real life.

Next f word.  Parrots.  Parrots who use f words.  Those of you (that means most of you, surely) who are familiar with the full canon of my work will know that I have a fondness - nice f word - for the conversation of parrots (notably in Second From Last In The Sack Race, unavailable from all good bookshops).  Well there was a splendid parrot story this week, and in case you missed it, I must quote the Times in full.

'Nuneaton.  A foul-mouthed parrot has taught two other birds to swear, to the annoyance of the owner of a wildlife sanctuary.  Barney, a seven-year-old macaw, has been swearing so often in front od a pair of African greys, Sam and Charlie, that they have picked up his language.  Geoff Grewcock, owner of the Warwickshire Wildlife Sanctuary, said: 'They just sit there swearing at each other.  It sounds like a builders' yard.  These birds can live until they are 70 so there are potentially another sixty years of this to contend with.'  In 2005 Barney was placed in solitary confinement after he told the local mayor to "f*** off" during a civic visit and then turned to two poilice officers and a vicar and added "You can f*** off too."'

The f word for this is 'funny'.  If you don't find that funny, there's no hope for you.  The details are all so perfect.  Sam and Charlie are wonderfully ordinary names for African greys, annd as for Geoff Grewcock - you couldn't make it up.  Nuneaton, too, a town desperately in need of a few laughs.  Solitary confinement for a parrot.  Fantastic. And "You can f*** off too.'!  That "too" is sublime.  Barney really does understand what he's saying. And the insulted included those three classic butts - a mayor, a vicar and the police.  I tell you - those birds have got sitcom cracked. 

Next f word.  Fiasco.  It has to be Terminal 5.  My only comment on this utterly embarrassing farrago of folly, farce and failure is about the extraordinary fact that some of the suitcases have to travel down 27 kilometres of...of...chutes?  escalators?  Let's just say 'of whatever suitcases have to travel down'.  I am struck by an image I cannot get rid of - a suitcase winning Sunday's London marathon.

Final f word.  Flame.  Thousands and thousand of police guarding this wretched flame as it makes its way past rival teams of protesters  People are getting upset that the Olympics are being politicised.  For goodness sake, this journey of the precious flame is no great valued tradition. It was created by Adolf Hitler.  I can feel another f word coming on.

I don't want to know about the next Olympics even before they start.  I deplore what the Chinese are doing in Tibet.  But something else I worry about is the Olympics after the next Olympics.  What kind of a show will be put on by the nation that built Terminal 5?

Next f word - final.  A final thought.  Should Gordon Brown go to the official opening/closing?  The Nobbblog says that he should go to them all.  The Nobbblog believes that he should sit as close as possible to the Chinese leaders, plus a few other dignitaries, including President Sarkozy and Hilary Clinton, and he should take with him three new friends - Barney the parrot and Sam and Charlie, the African greys.

APOLOGY - 16/03/2008

Dear Nobblogg

I am so sorry to have been silent for so long, but I'm glad to say that the reason is that I have been so busy writing.  I'm afraid even this isn't a blog, it's just an apology.

On Tuesday I went to London, had a good time at the Oldie Awards, then went to the readthrough of the scripts for the second series of my Radio 4 sitcom, The Maltby Collection.  It's a bit special to me, is this.  In fact I've enjoyed writing it more than any scripts since A Bit of a Do.  There was a great atmosphere and a lot of laughter and I thought, 'Right.  Not much work to do here.  Now at last I can write to my dear friends, the Nobbloggers.'

Then came the blow.  Five of the scripts were too short.  What could I do?  I had to write extra stuff, and I am only just going to be able to get it done in time for the recordings, and of course I have to be at those.

So I've no time to write to you properly until early April.  Watch this space.

A GREAT NEW PRIZE, BLOGGERS - 21/01/2008

In recent days a few people have told me that they have enjoyed my blogs, and I've thought, 'Oh my God, I've forgotten to do one for ages.'   I have to confess, you see, that I am not a natural blogger.  When I get the writing itch, I turn to a novel or a play or an episode of a sitcom, and my webside gets out of date.  And I know, from my perusal of other people's websites, that there is nothing more depressing than an out of date site, untended, forlorn, covered in virtual dust.

There is another reason for my neglect - my utter technical ineptitude.  After a certain number of minutes my computer disconnects and all my blogging gets lost.  I get round this only by transferring my text to the blog every few minutes, hoping that there won't be thousands of you logging on and finding a curiously unfinished paragraph.  I'm off now to transfer this bit.  Bye.

Hi there.  I'm back.   I wonder how long blogs and blogging will survive.  I wrote a play for Yorkshire Television, later adapted as a BBC sitcom, called 'Dogfood Dan and the Carmarthen Cowboy.'  It was about two lorry drivers. One of them took dogfood from Hull to Carmarthen and came home empty, the other took dogfood from Carmarthen to Hull and came home empty.  (Satire)  The title referred to their handles.  Remember handles?  They were the names you used on Citizen's Band radio.  What a craze that was for at least a fortnight.  Will blogs go the same way?  'Old Nobbsy's so out of touch up there in Yorkshire.  He's still blogging.'  'No!'

Anyway, in an attempt to compensate you for the irregular updates to the Nobblog (blogging is an ugly word, so let's make it even uglier) I have decided to hold A GREAT COMPETITION with THREE WONDERFUL PRIZES - just for you.  Only those who access the Nobblog will know the competition even exists.  I don't have all the details yet, but it will involve some kind of general knowledge quiz.  I have decided on the prizes, though, and they are fantastic. 

I wonder if any of you have noticed how many marvellous men have surnames beginning with B.  Well there will be three prizes, each featuring a long weekend with a marvellous man whose surname begins with B.

Yes, folks, you will have a chance, an unparalleled, never before offered chance, of spending a long weekend with either Michael Barrymore, Gordon Brown or Paul Burrell.  I know.  I'm generosity personified.  All that I need to do to fix this great competition is to persuade the three man to play ball.

But first I need a bit of input from you.  I just cannot decide which of the three prizes should be first prize, second prize and third prize.  It's so hard to separate them.  Perhaps you can help.

Talking of plays for Yorkshire Television, I also write a play called Cupid's Darts, and that has formed the basis of my latest novel, Cupid's Dart, the paperback version of which will be published by Arrow Books seven days before Valentine's Day, giving you the chance to buy it for your beloved at any good bookshop, and even at some bloody awful bookshops.  The play starred Robin Bailey and Lesley Ash, whose first starring role it was.  She was brilliant, utterly captivating, and for that alone I could have dedicated the book to her, but the real reason was my sorrow and anger over the horrible infection she picked up in hospital and which has left her needing to walk with a stick.   Since I dedicated the book to her she has of course been awarded five million pounds.

I'm not going to debate whether this is a fair sum - money can never fully compensate for any degree of loss of one's health and beauty - but I am going to debate the economics.  Few things in our depressing country depress me more than the fact that one is liable to become ill by going to hospital.  For one thing, a land of which that is true is hard to satirise.  We liive in a land of self-satirisation.

Why do people get ill by going into hospitals?  Because, in order to save money, cleaning has been contracted out.  I visited five hospitals last summer during 'The Nosebleed Weeks (Soon to become a Feature Film)'  Some of the hospitals were good.  York District Hospital was truly excellent.  Except for the cleaning.  The cleaning was of a pathetic standard in all five hospitals, and nobody in the hospitals dared to say anything about it.  Saving money cost Lesley's five million and millions more besides.  The Nobbblog (I've added an extra B to make the word uglier still) says that this the economics of the madhouse.

Another dreadful instance of this contracting out occurs on the railways, with the maintenance of the lines entirely separated from the running of the trains.  This means that when the train is very very late you''ve nobody on the train to blame, which is intolerable.  I used to read a Dick Francis novel on the train, because it was just the right length for the journey from York to Kings Cross and back.  Since Network Rail things have changed.  Last week I took War and Peace, and finished it at Retford.

I did consider contracting out some aspects of my novel writing.  I held discussions with a firm in Yeovilton which specialise in character development, and even went so far as to meet Plots Are Us of Preston.  But in the end I decided that the whole thing should be done by one organisation.  NHS and Network Rail, take note.

As I pen this edition of the Nobbblog, it is raining outside.  Thank goodness it's outside.  And of course there are floods.  Now this week it hasn't actually rained any more than in many other weaks in the ghastly whinters of this beknighted island  ( I knew I shouldn't have trusted Spellcheck of Staines).  So what's gone wrong?  After exhaustive, not to mention exhausting, discussions with the man on the Clapham Ominbus (how does that service survive with only one male passenger?) the Nobbblog has come to the conclusion that part of the problem is that rivers used to be dredged far more than they are now.  Why are they dredged less?  To save money.  What is the result?  Vast expense.  The Nobbblog says that prevention should be the name of the game, and it says to Gordon Brown,  'Get your finger out, Gord, or Barrymore and Burrell will leap ahead of you in the great long weekend prize stakes.'

Another depressing thought about this depressing island - today, the third Monday in January, is regarded as being the most depressing day of the year - has suddenly struck me.  Immigration.  There is a vast amount of legal and illegal immigration.  I'm not making the usual points about this.  I'm just saying, 'Oh my god, things must be even more depressing elsewhere.'  That is a thought.

Still, one thing that has been there to cheer us all up this winter is the dear old Beeb.  Suddenly, in the midst of all the gory series about serial killers (The Nobbblog says, 'Bring back One Man and His Dog') we have had some really rather good costume dramas.  Costume dramas are like London buses.  You wait for months, and then three come along - Cranford, Sense and Sensibility, and Lark Rise to Candleford.  If you don't pay attention you can get very confused about the plot, especially as a lot of the same actors are in them all.

I began my career, all those years ago, on 'That Was The Week, That Was'.  Oh, for it now.  I would love to write a nice little utterly confused costume drama sketch.  The title?  'Lark Rise to Cranford'

Never mind.  Why give these gems to millions?  They are for you and your eyes only, because, bloggers, you are very special to me, both of you.

It's raining inside now as well.  I must find a new roofer.

See you soon.

This edition of the Nobbblog was written for David by the Bromsgrove Blog Company. 

HAPPY CHRISTMAS - 25/12/2007

On this my very first web Christmas I want to give a huge thank you to all those who have contacted the site and even more to those who have sent a web enquiry to me  They mean a lot to me.  If you haven't received a reply it means that your email address must have been given wrong or, as happened a few times, I received no name or message whatsoever.  The contact with you means a lot to me, and I always reply if I can.

I hope you will all have/have all had a marvellous Christmas and a great 2008.

More very soon.

PC World - 01/12/2007

When I heard the news about the teddy bear in the Sudan, one of my first thoughts, after my horror had subsided, was that in the modern world there can be no place for satire and perhaps no place for comedy.  Comedy writers are redundant  The world is creating its own comedy as it goes along. On reflection I realised that events like that make the need for satire and for comedy more urgent than ever.  People who have no sense of humour easily lose all sense of proportion and all relationship with common sense. 

Political correctness has made life quite difficult for those of us who work at the word face.   Since I last communicated with you - too long ago, but I get bound up with whatever I'm writing and forget about the internet, I am still not truly an IT person, IT to me is something you used to add to gin - there has been another, much smaller story which also seems to do the satirist's work for him (or her - this is all about pc). 

Sarah Kennedy, of Radio 2 fame - and widely heard, as I know because she was kind enough to praise a comment of mine and so many people heard it and mentioned it to me - told listeners last month that her car had almost run down a black man because she didn't see him until he opened his mouth and she saw his teeth - or words to that effect.  The BBC received complaints that this was racist and made an apology.

What is racist about that?  The man was black.  That is a fact.  The fact that he was black is also germane to the story.  If she had said that she nearly ran over a man because she couldn't see him until he opened his mouth, it would have been pretty lame.  She had to say that he was black.  There is nothing offensive in that unless you think that it is offensive to call people black, that black is an insulting word.  Clearly the people who complained do.  They are, I would suggest, the racists.

I read of at least one council whose councillors voted to ban the use of the phrase 'black coffee' as being offensive.  That is an even worse case of racism, though presumably they would be too thick to understand that.  Oh dear.  Is that remark thickist, or councillorist?

When I created the hippopotamus joke in Reggie Perrin, I received no complaints.  Would that be so today?  Wouldn't it be regarded as dreadfully sexist, or even mother-in-lawist, and perhaps, if you were a wild life enthusiast with a horrible mother-in-law, hippopotamusist .

I recently took part in a 40th anniversary tribute to The Frost Programme.  One of the sketches shown was a lovely little joke from Barry Cryer.  A man goes into an icecream parlour and asks for an icecream.  The assistant says, 'You're Jewish, aren't you?  We don't sell icecream to Jews.'  'That's outrageous,' says the customer.  'I'd like to speak to the manager.'  'Mr Cohen?' calls out the assistant.   Mr Cohen arrives.  'This man is complaining that we don't serve icecream to Jews,' says the assistant.  'That's right,' says Mr Cohen.  'We don't.'  'But that's outrageous,' says the customer.  'You're Jewish yourself.'  'Have you tasted our icecream?' says Mr Cohen.

This is a splendid Jewish joke and went down very well when recorded 40 years ago.  When it was replayed to the 2007 auudience I sensed a feeling of unease, tension, broken of course when the tag line was spoken.

We are all so much more sensitive now.  On the same recording of the Frost report, there was a tag line consisting of one word - 'rapists'.  I can't remember the joke, but it had received a big laugh 40 years ago.  I would guess that it wouldn't today.  When I edited the TV series, 'Sez Les', we had a gag in which Les, dressed as a Viking, rushes into a village of straw huits wielding a primitive club amd shouting, 'Rape.  Rape.  Rape.'  He bangs on one of the huts and a very elderly crone emerges.  'Pillage.  Pillage.  Pillage,' cries Les.

That joke is sexist, ageist, almost every kind of ist.  Thirty years ago, in that absurd context, with the sublime sight of Les as the world's least likely Viking, the joke caused no offence whatsoever.  I am pretty sure we would not have even attempted such a joke today.  In this particular instance I am on the side of political correctness.  Rape is just not funny.  It is less a matter of principle, in deciding what is and what is not funny, more a matter of common sense and above all a sense of proportion.

I must confess a secret weakness here.  I love making cannibal jokes.  'I had the chance to meet some cannibals once, and I must admit I was really looking forward to a good dinner, I've always fancied eating people.  Just my luck.  They weren't having dinner, it was a finger buffet.'  Offensive? 

My conclusion about comedy and political correctness is that it has had some good and necessary effect but that it has been taken to such extremes that it is in danger of disappearing up its own earnestness.  I'd like to end with a return to the vexed question of the adjective 'black'.

I once gave a few seminars on comedy at Leeds Metropolitan University.  The first one, I freely admit, was pretty hopeless.  One or two of the students were black, and that is a fact, not an insult.  One of them objected to my use of the term 'black comedy' as being offensive.  I said that it had always been known as this and that it was nothing to do with the colour of skin, the reason for the name was that the night is black (I have no idea whether that is true, but it seemed convincing at the time).  Anyway, he didn't accept it, and began to treat me with hostility as well as contempt.  At the end he asked me, in tones of heavy sarcasm, 'From your vast experience of writing comedy, could you give us just one sentence of helpful advice?'  I groped, and suddenly heard myself say, 'Yes.  Enjoy your writing.  Then at least one person will have.'  Unexpectedly, he liked this reply, and suddenly grinned with real friendliness.  Which has nothing to do with political correctness, but then surely an occasional touch of complete irrelevance is welcome?  It's all a question of proportion.

YET MORE HOSPITALS - 22/10/2007

I promised/threatened (delete whichever word is inappropriate) to continue my tales from a hospital bed, and so here I am again.

My next spell in hospital was in Hereford, where I had a prostate operation in the 1980s.  Hereford and Herefordshire are both lovely, and characters abound, so perhaps it's not surprising that I have more memories connected with this hospital than with any other.

I was admitted on the evening prior to the operation, and sought comfort in the day room.  I didn't find comfort there.  Instead I found a man who told me, 'Oh, I had a prostate op six weeks ago.  They told me it would be simple, and here I am still.  I've had all sorts of complications.'  Terrific.  Thank you very much.

Shortly after I came round from the op, I heard the following conversation.

'Do you remember the ginger haired man who served on the cheese counter in the market on Tuesdays?'

'Yes, haven't seen him lately.'

'You wouldn't have.  He's dead.  Do you remember the bald bookie who always shouted in a very squeaky voice at Hereford races?'

'Yes, he wasn't there last time I went.'

'He wouldn't have been.  He's dead.  You know the one-legged newspaper seller who stood on the corner of High Town?'

'Yes, I haven't seen him lately either.'

'You wouldn't have.  He's dead.  You know who I mean when I mention the very rude, fat man who served in the fish shop?'

'Yes.  I haven't seen him either.  He's dead, is he?'

'No.  He's moved to Kidderminster.'

I promise you I wasn't hallucinating.

As I began to recover, I couldn't help noticing the strange behaviour of the man in the end bed opposite.  He was so creepy and crawly to the nurses, 'Thank you so much, my darling' and 'May I ask a little favour, my love, if you aren't too busy?', but the moment they had gone he would insult them under his breath.  'Fat cow.'  'Ugly bitch'.  And worse.  When it was time for him to go home, a nurse rang his wife and said she could come and collect him.  The nurse told me what his wife replied.  'I'm not going to collect hi.m  I suppose if you send him I'll have to accept him, but I'm not going to collect him.'

In the bed next to this man there was a younger man who didn't talk much, and then only very quietly, so I didn't speak to him until it was time to clean the ward and the beds in one half were moved into the middle so that the cleaners could scrub the floor under where the beds had been.  That tells you it was a while ago.  Nobody cleans under beds any more.  No wonder there are so many infections in our hospitals.  The cleaning is a national disgrace.  It's murder by contracting out.  Anyway, my bed was now close to this man's, and he spoke to me for the first time, very quietly.

'They'll start to come in soon.' he said.

'Who?' I asked.

'Them.'

'Them?'

'Ministers.  Vicars.  Priests.  Rabbis.  Trying to cheer us up.  Armies of them.'

His tone expressed equal disdain for them all.  No prejudice here. 

 Shortly after the cleaning was over, a young C of E vicar did indeed appear.  He was red-faced, embarrassed, nervous, wet behind the ears, palpably new to this kind of thing.  My soft-voiced friend pointed at him and yelled, at the top of his voice, 'It's started'.  The young vicar hurried on as fast as his little legs could carry him.

By the time of my next hospital visit I was living in North Yorkshire, and had to have a biopsy of the bladder.  I didn't stay in overnight (and I'm glad to say that nothing sinister was found), but I did have a general anaesthetic so I think I can count it as a proper hospital admission.  I was only in the ward for a couple of hours or so, but there was still time to over hear one classic conversation.

A shy young black doctor came to examine a dry, deaf, elderly Yorkshireman.

'Have you got a cough?' said the doctor.

'You what?' said the man.

The doctor looked round the ward, and then drew  the curtains round the man's bed, as if he believed that we would no longer be able to hear.  We heard every word.

'Have you got a cough?'

'You what?'

'Will you cough for me?'

'You what?'

'Cough for me.'

'You what?'

By now the doctor was really shouting.

'Cough for me.'

'Oh!  No, thanks.  I've just had a cup.'

We move now from Hereford and Harrogate to another city beginning with H.  Ho Chi Minh City.  My wife and I were on a Swan Hellenic cruise, and I passed out in the restaurant.  I was taken to the ship's medical centre, where a female doctor, I won't call her a lady doctor, said to me, with all the bedside manner of Adolf Hitler on a bad day, 'You've either had a heart attack or you are going to have a heart attack.'  I was taken down a cvery steep gangway on a stretcher by very small and panicky Vietnamese ambulance men and rushed to an international clinic through the teeming streets at a speed guaranteed to give anyone a heart attack.

A beautiful Vietnamese lady doctor, I will call her a lady, soon assured me that I hadn't had a heart attack.  I did have a heart irregularity, but it turned out to be nothing to worry about, and we later deduced that I had passed out by lunching in a hurry in a combination of great heat and humidity on a hot Madras curry and a large glass of red wine, all of which led to dehydration and lowering of the blood pressure.

One day we were on the cruise of a lifetime, the next I was being told by an Australian doctor, 'I'm sending you to Bangkok General.'  It was a low moment, but eventually I was so stable that they decided to send me home instead.  It took more than ten days to find a medical escort.  He flew to Bangkok from London, and  Vietnamese doctor escorted us to Bangkok. 

On the way to the airport we passed a football stadium and he became very animated.

'David Beckham play there?  Only twenty minute, but I have een him.'

I was about to say, 'What do you mean - "een him", when I realised that the doctor couldn't say his esses.  There follwed a bizarre conversation.

'You like football.'

'Very much.  I love the Premierhip.  I watch recording every Unday.  I upport Charlton Athletic.'

'Charlton Athletic?  Why?  Nobody supports Charlton Athletic even in Charlton.'

'Charlton Athletic very good team.  Cott Parker make big mitake go to Newcatle United.  Big mitake.  Alan Curbiley very good manager.'

I don't remember any extraordinary conversations in the clinc, but I will never forget that one with the doctor.  I think it speaks volumes about the strange and illogical fascination men have with football. 

Two hospitals to go.  Hang on in there, we can make it.

Charing Cross next, this summer, after a nosebleed that lasted four and three quarter hours.  I was only in two days, and I only recall one conversation now.  On the lunch menu there was, among other delights, cod with parsley sauce.  A somewhat obese lady waddled up to the nurse's desk and said, 'Do you have anything for really bad indigestion?'

'Why?' asked the nurse.  'Do you have bad indigestion?'

'No,' said the lady, 'but I will have this afternoon.  Cod with parsley sauce always gives me bad indigestion.'

'Are you sure?' asked the nurse - rather foolishly, I thought, to be honest.

'Of course I'm sure,' said the woman.  'I have it every week.  I should know.'

I should have kept quiet, but I didn't.  As the woman waddled painfully past my bed, I asked, 'If cod with parsley sauce gives you such bad indigestion, why do you order it?'

She looked at me as if I was mad.

'I like it,' she said.

My last hospital stay, in York District Hospital, occurred just a couple of weeks after that, towards the end of August this year, after sanother violent nosebleed.  This time, although still on the NHS, I got a room to myself.

Nothing interesting happened at all, and I kept feeling, quite wrongly - I have nothing but praise for this hospital, ublike some of the others, that I was being neglected, forgotten, overlooked.

Private room?  No, thank you.  So boring.

Hospitals - 10/10/2007

I'm sorry to have left you so long without an update.  How have you been able to bear it?  The cause, of course, was my nosebleeds, which got worse after my last blog before they got better.  I ended up in hospital on saline drips and oxygen, and with the transfusion service ready if needed.

Anyway, my nose is all behind me now, as the contortionist said, and I've had a nice long rest, and I'm writing again.

I realised two things about hospitals during the nosebleed time.   I realised that I quite like them, and that I've been in quite a lot of them.  I think of myself as a very healthy man indeed, yet I  have been in no less than eleven hospitals in my life.

Probably I like them because I've always been ill when I've been in them.  I only like being a patient.  I hate them when I'm visiting patients, even if I only have to stay an hour.  But when I'm ill the fact that all decisions are taken out of my hands is really rather enjoyable.  In fact I get thoroughly institutionised in a very short time.

So I thought today that I might tell you a bit about my various stays in hospital. 

The first one was Petts Wood Maternity Hospital, in Kent, in 1935.  I don't remember anything about it.

Next came the Royal Naval Hospital in Plymouth, in 1954.  I was doing my national service, in the Royal Signals.  I suffered from the skin complaint psoriasis.  I was in the Depot Regiment at Denbury, near Newton Abbot, awaiting embarkation for Cyprus along with the other eleven members of my draft.  On the day before we were to leave I was told that I couldn't go outside Europe, because of my psoriasis, so all my mates left without me.  I was devastated, and went to the camp doctor, who told me that the best cure for the complaint was sea bathing and sunshine.  'Wouldn't I get this in Cyprus?'  'Of course.'  'Then why can't I go?'  Because you're in the army.'

I demanded treatment, and to my surprise I got it.  I was sent to the Royal Naval Hospital in Plymouth, and in seven weeks they cured my skin complaint with coal tar and baths.  It returned as soon as I left hospital, of course.  I liked the Royal Naval Hospital, except for the twice daily tot of rum that was on offer.  I couldn't even abide the smell of it, because it was on dark rum, in Loughborugh, that I first got drunk. I spent one of the worst half hours of my life in a hedge just outside the town.  I've never gone near dark rum, or indeed Loughborough, or indeed that hedge since that evening. 

One day it was my turn to collect the lunches for the ward.  It was a self-service hospital.  I set off, with twelve lunches in a trolley, and got stuck in the lift.   I didn't go hungry, but the ward did.  It was three and a half hours before I was released.  After about an hour and a half some engineers arrived.  I could hear them working on the mechanism far below.  It sounded as if they were hacking at it with axes.  It was a very tense afternoon.  I ate four lunches to calm my nerves, and that evening I almost drank my tot of rum.

1955 saw me in two more hospitals, both military ones.  I can't remember which one came first, but let's say it was the British Military Hospital in Munster, Westphalia.  My complaint was not the sort one boasts about.  I had boils in both ears.  These came from wearing earphones in connection with my work as a morse radio operative.  Boils in both ears and psoriasis.  No wonder the nurses weren't turned on.  Now, when I think of it, I'm reminded of John Cleese in Monty Python as the chemist coming out to a crowd of people waiting for their medicines and saying, 'Which of you is the boil on the bum?'  The only strange thing that happened in this hospital was that the man in the next bed told me that he was on a charge for losing a tank.  I think that must have been quite an achievement.

The next hospital was a Canadian Military Hospital, in Iserlohn, in the Ruhr.  Well, I think it was a Canadian hospital.  Everyone else in the ward was Canadian  I was there for my psoriasis, the boils having yielded to treatment.  There is no doubt that this was the most extraordinary of all the wards I've been in.  There were four Canadian soldiers in there who had nothing wrong with them at all.  They slept all day, didn't eat anything, but late in the evenings they all got up, climbed out of a window, dropped to the ground and disappeared, to return a few hours later carrying several dead rabbits, which they then proceeded to cook in the ward kitchen.  A good scam if you like rabbit.  I looked at them with awe.  These were real men.  My little skives seemed pathetic by comparison.

Back in civvy street, I actually survived for more than twenty  years before needing further hospitalisation.  Then, one Monday, I drove from my home in London to Manchester to attend a read through of a TV sitcom pilot I had written.  It was called 'The Glamour Girls'.  I knew the moment the rehearsals started that the two leading girls (not Briget Forsyth and Sally Watts, who eventually played the parts and were splendid) were utterly and totally wrong. After the day's rehearsal I went to somebody's farewell party, and began to feel as if it was my own farewell party.  I went off to an Italian restaurant with one of the actors, my great friend James Warrior, who was the only survivor from the pilot to make it to the actual series.  I felt more and more ill and told him that I was going back to my hotel.  Outisde the restaurant I fell and cracked my head.  I tried to stand.  My legs were like rubber.  Several times I tried and fell.  I told a passing couple that I was ill, not drunk, and they, bless them, went into the restaurant to find Will, as James is called, and he, bless him, rushed out and drove me to Salford Royal Hospital, where they pumped steroids into me and probably saved my life.  A doctor told me I'd got Hodgson's Disease.  I said, 'Has he got mine?'  Unfortunately this was probably just as funny as most of the lines in the sitcom.

I spent several days in that hospital.  What was wrong with me?  Well,   It had been a long tense day, I had endured too much stress, and my blood pressure had plummeted.  This is known to laymen as a panic attack, to doctors as a cardio-vascular incident, but when I was asked what was wrong with me I said that I was suffering from a severe case of bad casting.

 While I was in that elderly but splendid hospital, Mrs Thatcher was elected to power for the first time.  Several of the nurses wept.  It was a very moving and disturbing indication of just how politically divided Britain had become.  Now, I fear that we would all weep whoever was elected.

The next hospital to take me into its crumbling depths was the Middlesex Hospital in Goodge Street in London.  Again, the cause was a panic attack.  Again, this was associated with a read through, for the pilot episode of my Channel 4 sitcom, Fairly Secret Army.  It went well.  The cast were splendid.  But I suppose I knew subconsciously that it was a difficult show, depending for a great deal of its humour on the ridiculous pseudo-military language of its main character, played by Geoffrey Palmer.  'Tricky cove, Johnny Conversation.  Never quite got the hang of the blighter.'  Some people found this absolutely hilarious.  Many offices took to talking in that style.  Reviewers, those who liked the show and those who hated it, reviewed it in that style.  I suppose I knew, that morning, that this was a cult show in the sense that it would appeal a lot to a few people but not at all to the majority.  I suppose this realisation caused me stress.  Down went the blood pressure.  Once more I crashed to the pavement, this time outside a pub.

My one memory of the Middlesex is my last night.  Two very nice nurses came to my bed and told me, very gently, that they were moving my bed next to the Indian.  Nobody could stand more than one night next to him, so they put people beside his bed on their last night.  Should I even mention this in these politically correct times?  Well, yes, because it was true, and it wasn't because he was an Indian that people could only stand one night of him.  He didn't smell of lamb dhansak and have appalling sanitary habits.  He was very well spoken and extremely fastidious and polite.  The problem was simply that he talked...and talked...and talked.  And boasted.  When he discovered that I was a writer, he took no interest whatsoever in my work, but told me of all the writers he had known.  'Lawrence.  I'm speaking of D.H.  I only met T.E. once.  What talks D.H. and I had.  Frieda would bring us a mug of chocolate and say, "I'm off to bed, chaps" and we'd jaw on about this and that till half past two.'  Had he ever met D.HLawrence?  Did it matter?  How could I stop him?  I very nearly had another panic attack. 

There are still five hospitals to go - Hereford, Harrogate, Ho Chi Minh City, Charing Cross and York.  Hereford was particularly rich in eccentric patients, and Ho Chi Minh City was quite an experience too.  Watch this space and I'll tell you about them next week - unless I'm in hospital, of course.                                                      

Nosebleeds - 15/08/2007

I've never really thought of nosebleeds as being serious - until this summer.  My nosebleeds began a month ago, and they are the reason why I have taken so long to write this latest instalment.

My summer hasn't been all about nosebleeds, of course.  I do have pleasant memories to talk to you about - our village feast, my trip to the Montreux Jazz Festival, the marvellous remarks made to me about my work by an elderly lady in a crowded London room.  But the nosebleeds do dominate.

For those of you who like detail, they were from the right nostril only.  My left nostril has behaved impeccably throughout.

At first I didn't take the nosebleeds particularly seriously.  They weren't pleasant, but they did stop.  Then, on a Monday morning, a couple of weeks ago, I woke in our hotel room in London with a real pearler.

It began at twenty five past five, and went on and on and on.  And on.  If you don't like the sound of blood, close your eyes while you read the next bit.  Blood even poured from my right eye and down my throat with such power that it forced its way through my lips.  O.K., you vcan open your eyes again now.

I sat pinching my nose in the approved fashion, and trying to think about pleasant things, like our village feast.  It's called the Feast Day, but, this being Britain, it isn't a feast at all.  There is a procession behind a pipe band, there's a fancy dress competition for the children, and there's a fun fair

The fair is small and old-fashioned, but innocent - and fun.  Local osteopaths stand hopefully beside the dodgems, keeping an eye open for customers.  In the pubs, which are open all day only on such special occasions, dentists offer their friends pork scratchings. It's a sweet occasion, but not quite exciting enough in this modern era to keep me from thinking about my nosebleed.

From time to time the flow of blood eased, but back it always came, and in the end we decided I would have to go to A and E.  Susan had to help me dress, because I couldn't remove my hands from my nose.  I didn't look at my most dignified.  I trted to think about the nice remarks of that elderly woman, who had liked my work so much, but it was no use.

I tried to amuse myself by recalling the moment, early in my time in our village, when I was asked to present the priizes at the flower show.  Luckily I wasn't asked to judge them.  Our village isn't part of the Midsomer group, where John Nettles would investigate at least four murders after a flower show, but it can still get pretty fraught if you insult somebody's giant marrow.

The name of our village is Burton Leonard, but a few days before the show I received a letter addressed to Bert and Leonard.  In my speech I said that I could picture them only too well.  Leonard was a 59 year old classics master at a public school, Bert was a 35 year old lorry driver and his bit of rough trade.  This wasn't quite the right note for a village flower show, luckily, so I've never been asked to open, close, or judge anything again.

I tried to take my mind off things with something more substantial - the Montreux Jazz Festival.  Susan and I spent three glorious days there in July with her daughter Briget and husband Mark and two Northern Irish friends, Janet and Alan.  The sun shone endlessly, lighting up the snow on top of the mountains.  The water on the lake was like glass.  The bars were crowded with happy music lovers of all ages.  There were stalls of food from all over the world, and one wandered to one's concert eating meals none of which cost more than 15 francs.  And not a nosebleed in sight.  Oh no.  Even this memory isn't working.

We had tickets for two concerts, and on the Saturday afternoon we spent four hours on a 'Hot Brazilian Boat', salsaing our way round the lake in a temperature of 34 degrees, to the music of four great Brazilian bands.  I felt so young and fit that day, utterly unaware of the nosebleeds to come.  Oh no!

Truth to tell, the two concerts were rather diappointing compared to the previous year, when we saw B.B.King's final concert in Europe, at the age of 80.  To mark the occasion, at the end of the concert, he brought friends up from the audience for an impromptu jam session.  When I tell you that these friends included Randy Crawford, Barbara Hendrix and a pipless Gladys Knight, you'll know just how privileged we were.

The main acts of our two concerts this year were Sly and the Family Stone, and Jeff Beck.  Both disappointed us, even though two of our party, guitarists both, were great fans of Jeff Beck.  But, sadly, Sly Stone was simply past his sell-by date, too old and too ill. He reminded me of a famous oak tree of great age in my cousin's village of Great Yeldham.  It's held together with several metal bars.

The first supporting act on the second concert was a man called Raul Midon.  None of us had heard of him.  He was sensational.  He was born in New Mexico to an Argentinian father and an African/American mother.  He and his twin brother were premature, and were put in an incubator.  The eye protection was inadequate and both were blinded for life.  The brother, Marco, is a Nasa engineer.  Raul is a great star in the making.  What a story.  How pitiful to worry about nosebleeds.  Oh no.  They're back.

Think about Raul - his glittering guitar playing, the way he accompanies himself on an imaginary trumpet, making amazing sounds with his lips and mouth.  Think of his haunting songs, written by himself, many of them about blindness, none of them remotely mawkish.

Any of you who know me will be thinking, what is David on about?  The man knows nothing about music.  He's tone deaf.  Well, it's practically true.  When I was working on the Les Dawson show I was the only person there who didn't know why they were laughing at his piano playing.  But even I could thrill to the talent of Raul Midon.  There wasn't even a hit parade when I was at school.  I've come to music late in life and I intend to make the most of it.

I have to get back to the nosebleeds now.  Susan's back,. she's got a taxi, soon we are at Westminster and Chelsea's A & E.  There they cauterise the nose, unsuccessfully.  Then they block it, which is horrible.

 While they are blocking it, to take my mind off it, I reflect on the remarks made by the elderly lady.

'You're my favourite author in the whole world,' she said.  I could only just hear her above the noise.

'Well, thank you very much,' I said.

'A friend put you onto me and I've read every single one of your books.  They're all brilliant.'

'I don't know what to say.'

'Don't say anything.  Just bask in the knowledge of all the pleasure you've given.'

'I will.  I'll bask.'

'I'm seeing my friend tomorrow for coffee.  Just wait till I tell her that I've actually met David Lodge.'

There are moments when nosebleeds don''t seem too bad.

Apology - 27/07/2007

Dear Readers

Many apologies for not having updated my blog for so long.  This is due to a combination of Switzerland, a cracked rib, rain, more rain, nosebleeds, deadlines. a bad case of CDD (Campbell Diary Depression) and the dreaded Blog Block

A new blog will appear here before the end of next week.

Keep smiling.

.

The arts, and David Dimbleby - 19/06/2007

In the last week or two I've been doing three very contrasting things.  I've been presenting an evening of arts programmes on SkyArts - to be shown later, watch this space - I've been listening to my Radio 4 sitcom, the Maltby Collection, which is set in a fictional art gallery cum museum, and I've been watching David Dimbleby travelling round Britain in a pink shirt and a Land Rover, admiring our beautiful buildings.

For the SkyArts evening, I had to choose four programmes.  I didn't choose any comedy, that seemed too obvious.  I wanted both the viewers to see The Other Side of David Nobbs.  No, I shouldn't joke about the size of the audience.  I believe it's quite respectable (as indeed are most of the viewers) and the fact that it's rather small  says more about the state of British taste in this age than about SkyArts.

One of the programmes I chose was a profile of David Hockney, entitled 'Pleasures of the Eye'.  Ever since I chose it he has been very visible on our screens, looking not a day older than he did twenty years ago - art keeps you young - banging on about the modern world's intolerance to smokers and the fact that people don't use their eyes any more.

How right he is.  I will risk your ridicule, but I have to tell you that one of the most exciting activities of my childhood was looking out of  windows.  That's what I did on trains.  It's true that there wasn't much else to do, but when I look at people on trains today I see the world passing by unnoticed while they look inwards, listening to music or having conversations on their mobiles so empty and trivial that I'd be ashamed to be overheard.

Even tourists don't look out of the window.  The main line from York to Edinburgh passes, on the right, York Minster, the glory of Durham cathedral and castle, the bridges of Newcastle, glimpses of the exquisite Northumberland coastline, the beautiful estuary and town of Berwick-on-Tweed, and yet more tantalising glimpses of coastline in Scotland.  On the left there are fields.  There is variety, some of the fields are big, some of them medium-sized, some of them small, but the entertainment isn't exactly exciting.  Just as many people sit on the left, with the fields, as on the right, with all the highlights, and it probably doesn't matter anyway as most of them don't look up at all.  They are reading guide books of their next destination or next year's holiday.  They only look at the things they're told to look at.  They have lost the capacity to use their eyes imaginatively.  Which brings me back to David Dimbleby and his pink shirt.  Or shirts.  I hope for the sake of the people he interviewed that it wasn't the same shirt all the time.

The other three programmes I chose for SkyArts were a profile of Arthur Miller, a film of the great blues guitarist B.B.King in concert, and a Finnish biopic, in Finnish, about Sibelius.  This has very strange subtitles, with many of the speeches coming up in in pairs, so that as Sibelius begins to speak to a pretty girl, the caption will come up, 'Will you marry me?' 'Of course I will'.  It rather spoils your emotional involvement with his shyness in asking the question when you already know the answer. 'Get on with it, man, of course she will', you think.  However, I hope that if you watch my evening of programmes, you will persist with the film, as in the end it becomes very moving.

Sibelius had two major problems.  He was bad with money and he drank too much.  I could identify with both of these problems.  The second one wasn't a surprise.  Finns are known for their drinking.  When I toured the youth hostels of Italy several decades ago, there was a huge noise of tuneless singing outside the hostel in Venice.  A drunk gondolier?  No.  Somebody said, 'That'll be the Finn.  There's one drunk Finn at every youth hostel in Europe.'  A shamblic youth entered and collapsed against a wall, slowly sliding to the floor.  'Where are you from?' I asked him.  'Helsinki,' he said, and passed out.  A great friend of mine, who worked for ITN news and drank with rare talent, once told me that he was dreading the evening because it was going to be so alcoholic.  'You, Eric, dreading drink?  What sort of an evening is it?' I asked.  'The inaugural meeting of the Irish-Finnish Journalists' Friendship Association,'  he said.

I understood his fears.

One of the programmes that I didn't choose was 'How We Built Britain' with David Dimbleby.  I love architecture.  I think it's the most important of all art forms, because it's the one we can't avoid, however small is our interest in art.  We may not have paintings, we may  have never read a book, like. we are told, the Beckhams  (which small thing apparently doesn't stop Posh wanting to write them, what cheek, what hubris), but almost all of us live in a building.

Some of the buildings of Britain are exquisite, so I settled down for a visual feast.  And, intermittently, we got it.  Then we got another quite lengthy shot of David in his trusty Land Rover, driving past flat fields beneath endless skies.  'Clocked the colour of your shirt, now get on with it.' I wanted to cry.

One of the troubles about the programme is that he simply doesn't tell us much about the actual architecture.  He comes over all adjectival.  Things are vast, awesome, breathtaking, exquisite.  Ely Cathedral is absolutely fascinating architecturally, but he tells us nothing about this, clearly we are not trusted to be interested in anything about the history of architectural styles.  Social history, yes, and there's the other problem.  Everywhere he goes he has to talk to somebody, sometimes a resident - 'This must be a lovely place to live.'  'It is.' - but usually a humble craftsman.  I've grown to dread it when I see a workman looming up.  'How long have you been bodging?'   'Was your father a pargetter?'  'How long does it take to sweep all the chimneys?'  He presumably thinks he does this well, but to me he looks about as comfortable with it as a minor royal celebrating the centenary of an abattoir.

I'm not intending to make a personal attack on Uncle David.  I actually find him curiously endearing in the programme, and of course there are stunning bits, since we have some stunning buidings.  It's the concept I'm attacking.  This is dumbing down at its most stark.  Make it all human.  Reduce it to the audience's level.  I suppose I should be grateful that there isn't a phone in, which would enable somebody to make lots of money and would fill hours of screen time at no cost while we see all the buildings again as we vote for our favourite, helped/hindered by comments from Piers Morgan and Simon Cowell.  Dear God, what has this country come to?

I remember, many years ago, when I lived in Herefordshire, going for a drink in a favourite village pub, not a pink shirt or a Finn in sight, and hearing two farmers discussing silage.  It had been a good year for dry silage and a bad year for wet silage, if I remember.  Mind you, it was a long time ago, and I might have got it wrong.  Maybe it was a good year for wet silage and a bad year for dry silage.  I'll never be able to find out which, as I'm not quite sure which year it was, but I suppose I could narrow it down, if I wanted to, because it was round about the time of Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective.  But actually I don't think I'll bother as the silage isn't the point of the story.  The point is that they suddenly saw me, and one of them said, 'Hello, Dave, didn't see you there.  Hey, what do you think of The Singing Detective?'  I had to admit that I couldn't watch it as I suffered from psoriasis - I still do, just a bit -and couldn't bear the sight of Michael Gambon with the disease.  'Well, I think it's brilliant,' said my silage expert.  'It's surreal.  It's moved television drama forward ten years.'  People in the media don't believe that there are people like that, and I know there are, I meet them, and they don't need to be dumbed down to.  What are they watching now?

Much of the art world is irritating, absurd, pretentious, but what an awful world it would be without art, and perhaps dumbing down is even worse than being pretentious, although both spring from a conviction that other people are less clever and receptive than oneself.

I try, even in my sitcom (if I may bring the subject back,. as I close, to one of my greatest interests, myself) to teeat the arts seriously.  I had, in my first episode, the foillowing lines, lines that express something I feel most deeply.

'What do we remember of ancient Egypt?  Their financial consultants?  Their insurance salesmen?  Their mortgage rates?  No.  We remember their art.  Art is what lives on.  Art is what binds us humans together.'

TITLES - 11/05/2007

I SWEAR BY IT - 09/04/2007

Attention Spans - 05/03/2007

I actually have a website! - 08/02/2007

I find it hard to believe that I have actually opened a website and am writing a blog.  Until about two years ago I didn’t even have a computer.  But then until last year I didn’t have a personal trainer either.  There are two things to be done about going old.  Fighting it or accepting it.  I find that I’m a fighter.
For most of my long career I have written everything in longhand, doing at least two drafts, and then typing it out.  I have gone on record as saying that I am an artist, that I need to feel the shape of the words as they flow through my fingers.  Oh dear.  What pretentious rubbish!
The truth is that the typewriter was an inflexible, primitive piece of technology.  There was almost no capacity for editing on it.  All that horrible Tippex, and those ghastly correction ribbons that never quite concealed the alteration, which I always wanted to make on the last line of the page, so that I had to type the whole page again, ugh, don’t go there, David.
It was because I could edit as I went along that I liked writing in longhand, and now I have that capacity in spades on my wonderful, darling computer – my God, am I really writing this?
Anyway, welcome to my website and welcome to my first blog.  Blog!  Great idea, horrible, inelegant word, like a lavatory for learners.  But there are so many inelegant words in our modern culture – bling, chav, asbo, they’re the literary equivalent of old, torn jeans and scruffy tee-shirts.  Britain was such a snobbish country for so long that we just have to accept that our crass, celebrity-mad, street-cred-conscious society is an inevitable reaction against all those years of stiff upper lips, contemptuous lower lips, and dressing for dinner.
I used the word ‘culture’ in that last paragraph.  What does it mean?  To the Culture Minister it means casinos.  I’ve been on the left of British politics all my life, but I find that just one more contemptible decision by Tony Bling’s government. 
And what about the use of the word ‘reality’ to describe collecting together a group of carefully contrasting people with small brains and huge egos and putting them in a room together and paying them lots of money to humiliate each other and getting the public to vote on who to eject?.  It may be entertaining, I don’t know, I haven’t watched it, I might not feel so angry about it if I did and that would be terrible.  But it certainly has no connection with any reality that I recognise.
So is this what my blog is going to be?  The outpourings of a grumpy old man.  I hope not, although it will be rather nice to be able to let off steam from time to time.  But I hope there will be a few likes along the way as well as dislikes.
I’m writing this the day after a snowfall which deposited at least a quarter of an inch of the white stuff onto the fields outside my house.  The prospect of this caused people to stock their trolleys in the supermarkets as if the outbreak of war was imminent.  
Oh dear, I’m grumbling again, but we are getting a bit wimpish, aren’t we?  We’ve moved from Blimpish to Wimpish.  It isn’t all our fault, though.  It’s the way we’re treated.  It’s Health and Safety Britain.  Oh, dear I can feel another grump coming on.
A few weeks ago in London I stayed in a hotel room with two large picture windows and a balcony.  There was a Health and Safety sticker on the windows, explaining that they couldn’t be opened because there was a balcony.  It’s almost as bad as America, where a new brand of stepladder has the word ‘Stop’in large letters on the top step.
You may not have noticed, but last Saturday, on a programme called ‘The Comedy Map of Britain’, I appeared naked on British television for the first time.  This produced record ratings for BBC1.  Unfortunately I was on BBC2.
This startling event took place at West Bay, near Bridport in Dorset.  It was at West Bay that Reggie Perrin left his clothes on the beach in ‘The Fall and Rise...’ and we went there to discuss the location and to re-enact the opening credits, in which Leonard Rossiter took all his clothes off, disappeared behind a bank of shingle, and was replaced by a stunt man who swam off into the sea.
I volunteered to do the stunt man bit as well, but all hell broke loose, they had to get the permission of my doctor, who was on holiday, and in the end it was deemed too dangerous on Health and Safety grounds.  I suppose they were frightened of a law suit if I collapsed and died.
Even taking my clothes off involved getting police permission, which was given grudgingly on condition that everyone on the beach was told that a man was going to take all his clothes off.  There weren’t many people on the beach, it was a weekday morning in October, but this ensured that we had a small crowd to watch the great event. 
It all went off fairly speedily, and I was concentrating so hard on getting it right and avoiding a very painful collision between private parts and shingle that I didn’t have time to feel embarrassed.  As I started to put my clothes on a lady’s voice rang out from the nearby pier.  ‘Can he do it again?’  Can he do it again?  Is there a catch-phrase lurking there?  Anyway, I felt quite flattered.
So what did I think of it all when I watched it?  I haven’t watched it.  We were out last Saturday, and I forgot to record it.  That’s what I’m like with machines.  It’s amazing really that I’ve managed to do this blog.