More Rosebud: Gyles's Diary, episode 44

It's 1977, and Gyles is welcoming his first daughter, Saethryd, into the world - and explaining the origins of her name to all his friends. "Why such an extraordinary name?" "Because she's an extraordinary girl!" He's also fighting on several fronts: with the noisy neighbours next-door, with the theatre company which is refusing to pay up, and with the National Theatre. Gyles and Harriet chat about diary-writing, self-loathing, and whether Gyles has mellowed over the years... Plus a bit of astrology. It's a good one, diary fans! Enjoy this. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:23Speaker 03

  Hello again, I'm Gyles Brandreth. This is More Rosebud. I'm not alone on a Tuesday. I have a companion and it's always the same companion, I'm pleased to say. It's my friend, Harriet Jane. The person actually, when I came to her with the idea for this podcast called Rosebud, she thought of the name Rosebud. I think I was going to call it First Memories. You.

• 1:42Speaker 04

  Were you?

• 1:43Speaker 03

  Or something like that, I can't remember. When I first phoned you up about it, what did I say? Can you remember?

• 1:48Speaker 04

  No, you just said, "Oh, I've got a good idea for a podcast." And I said, I'm pleased I said this, by the way. I said, "Oh, that is a good idea."

• 1:57Speaker 03

  And then we met. And then quite quickly, you came up with the idea of Rosebud as the name. And here we are, almost three years later. And Rosebud, well, it spawned More Rosebud. And that's what we have on a Tuesday. And every other Tuesday, we have an interesting guest. And every other Tuesday, like today, we have diaries. And I was thinking to myself, Harriet Jane.

• 2:20Speaker 03

  You don't keep a diary on a regular basis. I have been keep, I do keep a diary on a regular basis. And I've also been keeping a journal quite recently, separate to the diary of.

• 2:32Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 2:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:33Speaker 04

  Crumbs.

• 2:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:35Speaker 04

  Not, not content with the diary, you've got to add to it.

• 2:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, but rather like there's the diary on a Friday, there's more, more diary on a Tuesday. But if you were keeping a diary this week.

• 2:44Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 2:44Speaker 03

  Uh, well, I was thinking you've had a really interesting week.

• 2:47Speaker 04

  I have and I should be keeping a diary, but I tell you why I don't. Because I've got so much self-loathing, which one of our guests this week. One of the interesting things that happened was one of our guests, Anthony Scaramucci, I'll say, the mooch.

• 3:00Speaker 03

  The mooch.

• 3:01Speaker 04

  He kind of did this incredible thing where he sort of fixed me. Was he'd been in the room for two hours doing this brilliant interview. And I'd just been a quiet person in the corner like I am. And at the end, he sort of looked straight at me and gave me this sort of cold reading, didn't he? He said, when's your birthday? And I said, June, and he said, you're a Gemini. And he's using horoscopes and whatever he'd gleaned from being around me. He said this incredibly perceptive thing about there being two people with inside me, the Geminis. And that one of them was giving the other one a hard time and I needed to tell that, that one to stop. I needed to stop talking negatively to myself.

• 3:45Speaker 04

  So, and, and I was really shocked when he said it to me because I thought, oh my goodness, that's what I do the whole time. But that's why I don't keep a diary because I read it back and I cringe at my voice. The voice of my diary. I find it so hard to write the diary in a way which I then can find pleasing to read.

• 4:09Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 4:09Speaker 04

  I read back my diary a year later, six months later, a week later, and I just think, oh.

• 4:16Speaker 03

  That of course.

• 4:17Speaker 04

  What a silly idiot.

• 4:19Speaker 03

  But that is the value of a diary. Let me just conclude for people about Scaramucci. Because it's, his podcast is coming out on Friday of this week.

• 4:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:29Speaker 03

  On the third of July. We've had this season of podcasts with Americans. And we thought it's the fourth of July on Saturday, two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the United States of America. Scaramucci is this remarkable figure who has his own podcast, of course, but also was briefly, humiliatingly briefly, the communications director at the White House for Donald Trump, and is a fascinating figure. But we discovered in the course of our long conversation with him that one of his fascinations is with astrology. We don't talk a lot about that on the podcast. You will find him completely riveting. It's a must-listen to on Friday. But afterwards, as Harriet says, as he was going, well, he said some delightful things.

• 5:13Speaker 03

  In fact, he called me afterwards and said, well, I liked, I can't do his accent. It's a wonderful American accent, isn't it?

• 5:20Speaker 04

  Italian, American, Long Island.

• 5:22Speaker 03

  Honestly, it is fantastic. He, he said, you know, I enjoyed being in the magic kingdom you two have created. Harriet, very interesting. And Harriet is Gemini, and I am Pisces. And he immediately sussed these two conflicting personalities within Harriet. He then said to me, you're Pisces, you're the fish, and you've got to get, the one side of her is happy, that's the creative side, and the other side, what did you say? Did you use the word self-loathing to him? You just use that word now. I think he may have said to him, the one side is very critical, I wake up in the middle of the night and being self-critical.

• 6:00Speaker 04

  He said, you can have two good people in you, or you can have two bad people in you. He said, but he sort of seemed to suss that I have maybe one of each, and one of the bad ones not being very nice to the good one.

• 6:13Speaker 03

  I think that is what he sussed, and what we've got to do is work on the bad one. And I said to him, how do I work on the bad one? He said, well, the good one is the creative one, you're doing good there. The bad one, there's only one way, and he talks about this in the podcast, kindness, kindness, kindness, kindness, love, love, love, that's the only way. So we're going to work on that.

• 6:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:34Speaker 03

  But to go back to the diaries, to be sensible for a moment, the value of a diary is it's written on the day, in the moment, with the voice of the day. People never understood that with the diaries of Kenneth Williams. Which on some days, there is self-loathing, there's waspishness. There are vicious things said about people who thought they were friends of his. Well, they were friends of his. But in that particular evening, he got back home and wrote in his diary. That was the mood of the day. So don't be frightened of the mood you're in on the day you write your diary.

• 7:03Speaker 04

  Oh, no, it's not that I'm saying mean things. It's that I don't like the style.

• 7:08Speaker 03

  Well, the trick of it, as I've found, having kept a diary now for, you know, sixty, seventy years, is don't actually write necessarily about your mood or your feeling. Write about what happened that day.

• 7:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, you're good at that.

• 7:20Speaker 03

  Describe, well, I mean, the easy way to do it is say the headlines today are in the world.

• 7:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:26Speaker 03

  I had for breakfast such and such. I then went to a meeting with so and so. Uh, the reason I was going to ask you about your diary is you sent me a text on, was it Sunday night? Saying you'd gone to a dinner, that the day before you said, I'm not sure I really want to go to this dinner. I've got other things to do, you know, haven't yet edited in next week's, uh, all this. Uh, but you went because you're a good person, you'd accept an invitation and you went. And I think I'm allowed to say this, it was at a high table at Oxford.

• 7:50Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 7:51Speaker 03

  And you found yourself seated with some very interesting people.

• 7:54Speaker 04

  Oh, had a great night.

• 7:55Speaker 03

  Ha, and you sent me a text about it, which was like a diary entry.

• 7:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:59Speaker 03

  It wasn't actually, my mood is such and such. It was, oh, I met this interesting man opposite me at dinner.

• 8:05Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 8:06Speaker 03

  And was he Chinese or had he worked in China?

• 8:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, he was Chinese, yeah.

• 8:09Speaker 03

  Remind me what you told me.

• 8:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, so it was St. Anthony's College, which is a graduate college in Oxford. So everyone there is, has already done an undergraduate degree and they're all in their twenties or thirties. Some of them are working in jobs and they're doing something at M Phil or whatever in their spare time or they're on a sabbatical. And so, and it's also got a very international reputation for being full of international students. I think a lot of people are doing things like diplomacy or governance or it's that kind of thing. Lots of foreign affairs. Um, so I sat next to this man who was Chinese and he was an expert in environmental policy.

• 8:50Speaker 04

  Um, I asked him a few things. He, I started off by saying, you know, are you watching the World Cup? And he said, no, China aren't in the World Cup this year. And I said, oh, you know, that's surprising. And he said, oh, no, no, we're hopeless. We're hopeless. And I then said, well.

• 9:07Speaker 03

  The largest countries in the world, if not the largest.

• 9:09Speaker 04

  I know. Um, but I then thought, I actually haven't heard about the Chinese football team. Maybe it's not, maybe football's not big in China, I thought. So I said to him, but is football a big sport in China? He said, oh, yeah, it's the biggest sport, the biggest sport.

• 9:23Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 9:23Speaker 04

  Everyone loves football and we've got a big football league. And so then I said, well, how come the Chinese team isn't in the World Cup? And he said, oh, because we don't have a good talent pool, because no Chinese parent would support their child becoming a footballer. If your child said they wanted to be a footballer, you'd just say, well, that's a hopeless career. You're only going to be working for 10 years and then you're going to be retired or injured or whatever. You need to be a doctor or run a company or a lawyer or, you know, what we know about sensible Asian parents, which is that they are very ambitious for their kids. And very sensible about a long-term career plan and where are you going to go with this and get yourself properly qualified.

• 10:07Speaker 04

  So I thought that was interesting because what you hear about children in the UK is that many children's ambition is to be a footballer. And because parents in our country are encouraged to be very yes, yes, yes, with their kids. I think you're encouraged to say to your child, if you want to be a footballer, darling, that's what you should do. You know, you're encouraged to sort of indulge your child's fantasies and dreams.

• 10:33Speaker 03

  I was sent by The One Show a few years ago to a primary school to talk about heroes.

• 10:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:39Speaker 03

  It was in relation to Winston Churchill being on the back of a banknote.

• 10:42Speaker 04

  Okay, yeah.

• 10:43Speaker 03

  And I talked about Winston Churchill and Florence Nightingale, William Shakespeare. Um, Rachel Nelson, the children had not heard of most of these people.

• 10:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:53Speaker 03

  And when I asked them who their heroes were, it wasn't Alexander Fleming. Uh, that was not the kind of role model they had. It was entirely footballers. It was a few years ago, so it was David Beckham and Wayne Rooney. And there was one other person who came up as a hero, who is the man who appears on Britain's Got Talent, Simon Cowell.

• 11:13Speaker 04

  Oh, oh, really?

• 11:13Speaker 03

  So those are the three names, the only three names that came up as being, who would you, who would you aspire to be?

• 11:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:20Speaker 03

  Nobody wanted to be a great scientist, a great politician, even a great business person.

• 11:25Speaker 04

  No, I know. And I, I mean, maybe it's changed, but definitely, because my mother-in-law was a teacher. She said, you know, all the girls wanted to be pop stars or influencers and or models, whatever, and all the boys wanted to be footballers. I mean, this is people in year seven or eight, you know, eleven, twelve, thirteen, so.

• 11:44Speaker 03

  But in China, they don't want to be for, the boys may want to be footballers, but their parents are saying, no, no, no.

• 11:49Speaker 04

  I mean, he was implying that the kids didn't want to do it either. They knew it wasn't really a great career.

• 11:54Speaker 03

  In the same text that you sent to me, instead of putting it in your diary, you also mentioned something about romance and couples in China?

• 12:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, so I asked him about, you know, whether he was with anybody and was, were his parents worried that he wasn't settled down? And he said, hmm, yeah, they sometimes say things, but they know that I'm, I'm my own person and there's no point in forcing me. But he said in the town where he's from, the parents write adverts for their children. So they'd get a page of A four or maybe bigger, maybe A three, and they'd write, you'd write a sign which advertised your child. So Giles, then there'd be a picture of you. And then they'd put your qualifications, your hobbies, editor of the school magazine, director of twelfth night night, you know, and they'd they'd do a kind of personal ad for you and then they'd stick that on a pole and walk around the local park.

• 12:45Speaker 03

  Is this today, twenty twenty six?

• 12:46Speaker 04

  Today, today. I think there's a, there's maybe a day, one day a month or something where everyone goes to the park with their little advertising hoarding with their kids' credentials on it. And they walk around and they have a look at everyone else and they go, oh yeah, Giles looks like a good match for Henrietta. And then they chat and they start to set up a date maybe. Yeah. I thought, well, it was quite an efficient way of doing it.

• 13:13Speaker 03

  Wonderful idea.

• 13:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:15Speaker 03

  So I'd like you to start keeping your diary again. And not to think about which of the two sides of the Gemini personality that is Harriet Jane is writing the diary, but simply to record conversations like the one with the Chinese person.

• 13:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, or what the mooch said to me when I was leaving.

• 13:32Speaker 03

  Or what the mooch said to me. Do please listen to the mooch. Actually, we've had some very interesting Americans over the last four weeks, haven't we, on Fridays? And then normal service will be resumed the following week. So we've got the mooch this Friday, and then some quite exciting stars of stage and screen turning up on Rosebud on the forthcoming Fridays. And then in August, we're still doing Rosebud, but we're doing it from another capital city. We're doing it from the capital of Edinburgh.

• 13:59Speaker 04

  I tell you my favourite story of the mooches, because it's a dating story.

• 14:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, do.

• 14:05Speaker 04

  Was when he said that he'd go to school dances, and he had a car at this point, because he's American and teenagers drive around in cars, it's so cool. And he'd go to the dance in his outfit, you know, his favourite shirt and his smart trousers. And he'd go in and he'd go up to a girl and he'd chat her up. And if it didn't work, he said he'd go back to his car, and in his car he had five more shirts, ready, laundered, pressed, hanging up in his car. And he'd change his shirt, go back in, go up to the same girl in the different shirt and say, do you like me now? And he said it really worked. I mean, what a move.

• 14:45Speaker 03

  He described himself as a Long Island Guido.

• 14:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:49Speaker 03

  Clearly, I mean, it is mesmerising. One of our best episodes, we're very excited about that.

• 14:54Speaker 04

  Love it.

• 14:55Speaker 03

  We've got some lovely episodes coming up, and I hope this is going to be a fun episode. Before we get to the diaries, have we had any interesting emails?

• 15:00Speaker 04

  Yes, this is a good email, Giles, because this refers to something in the diaries that happened in the last episode, or maybe the one before.

• 15:09Speaker 03

  Oh, yes, because by now we're in the 1970s in the diaries. And you may remember, Harriet, the problem was this, we lived at number one, Camden Hill Gardens, which was a lovely Victorian house. We had the whole house, you know, basement and I think then three floors, or maybe even four floors, wonderful, off Notting Hill Gate. Right next door to us was number two, Camden Hill Gardens. Which also was a tall Victorian house, but divided into flats.

• 15:32Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 15:33Speaker 03

  So we owned the freehold of our house, but next door were these flat dwellers. And one of the flats was occupied by people who were very noisy, noisy to the extent that he was driving us mad. Michelle was waking up in the night and literally crying with unhappiness. We did not know what to do. So we took recourse, we went to lawyers, could we do, you know, could there be soundproofing, et cetera? And I wrote about that in my diary in extenso. And this letter, I think, relates to that.

• 16:02Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 16:03Speaker 03

  Comes from somebody called Sue Willis. So it's a lady, you can, you can read the email.

• 16:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, thanks for emailing, Sue. Uh, hello Giles and Harriet. Love the podcast and have been listening since you first started them. Oh, that's lovely. Um, this episode, so she's saying the last episode of Diaries was interesting to me because Giles mentioned living in a house in Camden Hill Gardens and the landlady of the house next door being a Mrs. Windler. So this is the landlady of the, the flats that Giles spoke of in which some Mexicans were living in one of the flats. My husband had a wonderful eccentric aunt, Auntie Dolly, who lived in one of those flats, but died in nineteen seventy one. We used to go to tea or supper with her and despite her age, she was born in eighteen

• 16:50Speaker 04

  eighty seven, she would never let us help clear away or wash up, declaring that she certainly wouldn't offer to wash up in our house. Dolly became a nun.

• 17:02Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 17:02Speaker 04

  Then she stopped being a nun and married in nineteen eighteen, a sea captain called John Brown.

• 17:09Speaker 03

  This is a film in itself.

• 17:10Speaker 04

  Amazing. She didn't fancy becoming Dolly Brown, so she used her middle name Cunningham and hyphenated it, Dolly Cunningham Brown. Oh, she sounds like such a character. They had a daughter, Penelope Litchmere.

• 17:27Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 17:28Speaker 04

  Born nineteen twenty two in Kensington, known to the family as Loopy.

• 17:34Speaker 04

  Loopy married Alan Windler in nineteen forty six in Kensington. Are you following this?

• 17:40Speaker 03

  I'm following this totally. Mrs. Windler was Penelope Windler.

• 17:45Speaker 04

  Mmm.

• 17:45Speaker 03

  Absolutely. I'm not surprised she was known to the family as Loopy. Go on.

• 17:50Speaker 04

  When he died, when Alan Windler died in nineteen seventy six, it was discovered he'd been living a double life and had another family.

• 17:59Speaker 03

  This is, this is a movie. It's amazing the number of people who have been doing this.

• 18:03Speaker 04

  I know. So there you have the brief history of your Loopy landlord. I'm sorry if she didn't manage to evict the Mexicans and even more sorry for Michelle, being so stressed with a baby and all that noise. Keep entertaining us with your podcasts. We're the same age, Giles, not Harriet. So I love hearing all the sixties and seventies stories from your diaries. All the best to you both. Sue Willis.

• 18:30Speaker 03

  Well, as you may be discovering in today's episode, I'm not sure if it's today or next time, we eventually buy the house next door.

• 18:37Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 18:38Speaker 03

  So not only.

• 18:39Speaker 04

  I think that maybe does happen today.

• 18:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, so we actually gave a lot of money to Mrs. Windler.

• 18:45Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 18:45Speaker 03

  Because she didn't solve the problem with the Mexicans. We thought, well, I have to move or we're going to have to buy her out. And we bought her out.

• 18:53Speaker 04

  Blimey, Giles.

• 18:54Speaker 03

  Now, what is even more interesting in a way is that I think this lady, or was it her daughter? Went out with Michael Whitehall, who's the father of Jack Whitehall.

• 19:10Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 19:10Speaker 03

  It's a small world, isn't it?

• 19:12Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 19:12Speaker 03

  That's maybe by the by. Maybe we don't need that extra detail, but in the movie it'd be quite funny.

• 19:17Speaker 04

  I mean, just what we read there was.

• 19:21Speaker 03

  I would like, if there's anybody out there who actually lived in one of these double families, we'd love to hear from you because there's some quite, and the house I now live in, in southwest London, and I'm sure I have mentioned this before, I think was once lived in by a member of the Fives Banana family.

• 19:38Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 19:39Speaker 03

  And they had a double, they lived a double life.

• 19:43Speaker 04

  Gosh.

• 19:44Speaker 03

  And there is, if, as you go over.

• 19:48Speaker 03

  Putney Bridge, there's a blue plaque on a block of flats where a man called Ackley, J R Ackley, lived, who was a quite well-known writer. I think he had two families, two complete families. The theatre critic Kenneth Tyne, famously, he, his father had two families. And Kenneth Tyne only found this out, I think I've got this right, Kenneth Tyne was at home, wherever he lived, shall we say it was Cheltenham, and he's, the newspaper's arrived and on the front page of whatever the newspaper is, is a photograph of his father, his father, who turned out also to be, wait for it, the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, and it's on the front page of the Birmingham Post, and it's his dad, who normally lives in Cheltenham with

• 20:33Speaker 03

  his mum and the other children, and he had a whole second family.

• 20:36Speaker 04

  He's crazy. I mean, I'm gonna say what everyone's thinking, which is, how do you have the time?

• 20:41Speaker 03

  I know, and the energy.

• 20:43Speaker 04

  The admin.

• 20:44Speaker 03

  The admin, getting from what, so we'd love to hear, wouldn't we?

• 20:47Speaker 04

  And I have to say, that's why only men, it's only men you hear doing this, because men aren't doing the admin, the women are doing the admin.

• 20:54Speaker 03

  You're right.

• 20:55Speaker 04

  The men are just swanning in every other week or whatever, getting their dinner cooked for them and having a lovely time.

• 21:02Speaker 03

  I think the great, the great farce writer Ray Cooney wrote a farce about this, was it called Run For Your Wife, about a taxi driver, who it was easy, he had a cab, who commuted between his two families. But would you want that? I mean, having one wife and family is exhausting enough. Oh, enough of us chit-chatting, but I would like some time to dip into your diaries again.

• 21:25Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 21:26Speaker 03

  And I would encourage you to keep a diary, because we do meet so many interesting people.

• 21:31Speaker 04

  I know, I must. I'm gonna make it more matter-of-fact.

• 21:33Speaker 03

  I do. Go back, for example, you really enjoyed our time with Anthony Scaramucci, but just write about it.

• 21:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:42Speaker 03

  How he came, what he was wearing, how he was going back to the States the next day, what we talked about, the things you remember most, and then at the end, how we talked a bit about astrology, what he said to you, without commenting on it.

• 21:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:52Speaker 03

  And then what he said about me.

• 21:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:54Speaker 03

  And then how he moved on.

• 21:55Speaker 04

  Without commenting on it, that's the key.

• 21:59Speaker 03

  That's the key.

• 22:00Speaker 04

  Okay, thanks.

• 22:02Speaker 03

  Diaries. So, we've reached January nineteen seventy-seven, Tuesday, the eleventh of January nineteen seventy-seven.

• 22:13Speaker 03

  Went to Bush House for a world service discussion on the monarchy. The Queen's silver jubilee falls on the sixth of February. They will be much rejoicing. Is it justified? Of course it is, but we took thirty minutes to say so with a lot of pompous huffing and puffing as we did. The others on parade were John Grigg, the man who disclaimed his peerage and caused a national sensation back in nineteen fifty-seven when he called the Queen's way of speaking a pain in the neck. And Anthony Howard, editor of the New Statesman and general rent a smug opinion. It's funny, not so long ago, someone like Anthony Howard was a hero to me, a journalist of note, a voice in the land.

• 22:57Speaker 03

  Now he's just another middle-aged man with dandruff and a high opinion of himself. He really does think he's rather special. He has a hair lip and teeth like broken tombstones, poor fellow, so perhaps he's compensating. Grigg turned out to be quite jolly. Sorry I'm making these personal remarks. I'm certainly embarrassed by those. I do apologize. Because in fact, Anthony Howard was always very nice to me, so I rather regret that. Anyway, here goes. The point is, it's a record of how you felt on the day.

• 23:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

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• 24:08Speaker 03

  Thursday the 3rd of February 1977. Last night, at 11:57pm, at the Middlesex Hospital, London W1, Saethrid Charity Brandreth was born. Mother and baby, both doing well. I like to think the date, 2277, is auspicious. The arrival was swift. We had supper, chicken roasted by Michelle. We collapsed in front of the box, and then, halfway through, a programme on Mary Stopes. "Yes", Michelle said. "I think this is it. I think you'd better call a cab." This morning, I'd been phoning around the good news. "Everyone is nonplussed by the name." I now rattle off the explanation.

• 24:53Speaker 03

  "Saint Saethrid was the daughter of King Anna, the King of the East Angles, in the late 600s." Michelle found the name in the venerable beads' History of the Church in England. An ad that she can always call herself Charity if she's unhappy with Saethrid. Noel said, "Let's hope the poor child doesn't have a lisp."

• 25:13Speaker 03

  I had an amusing exchange with Simon Cadell. Simon: "Why such an extraordinary name?" Me: "Because she's such an extraordinary girl." Simon: "Already?" Me: "Always." I love my daughter's name. I love my daughter. And all these years later, she still calls Saethrid. Though we now know it probably should be pronounced Sethrid. But she does professionally often call herself Charity, because it can be easier.

• 25:43Speaker 04

  Just spell the name for everyone.

• 25:45Speaker 03

  S-A-E-T-H-R-Y-D. Daughter of the King Anna, the King of the East Angles. Michelle chose the name. Do you think it was a burden for her? She has to spell her name every day of her life.

• 26:00Speaker 04

  I think it's a tough thing to give. I'm just thinking of her as a little girl and going into rooms. Even Harriet, I found difficult because in Dartmouth, in Devon, everyone was called Claire and Debbie. And you're suddenly you're called Harriet and people go, oh, Harriet, you know, and you're having, you're six and having to sort of front up to this big name you've got. Saithrid, I mean, you're saying your name to people that don't know what you're saying and probably think you're making it up or saying something wrong or.

• 26:31Speaker 03

  A lot of her friends called her Saiths, S A I T H S.

• 26:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:35Speaker 03

  She's lived with it.

• 26:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:36Speaker 03

  Quite contentedly. She's published a number of books with the name Saithrid. But I do know that she does have almost like a professional persona who is charity.

• 26:45Speaker 04

  Right.

• 26:46Speaker 03

  So.

• 26:47Speaker 04

  That can be quite useful, can't it, to have that?

• 26:49Speaker 03

  And I think charity is quite a nice.

• 26:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, lovely.

• 26:53Speaker 04

  And she's a big personality. You know, sometimes having a big name does make you.

• 26:57Speaker 03

  Makes you.

• 26:57Speaker 04

  Big.

• 26:58Speaker 03

  And I suppose, oh, did we challenge our children from the start, do you think? Well, clearly we did. Look.

• 27:04Speaker 04

  They've all done well.

• 27:05Speaker 03

  They've all done well.

• 27:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:06Speaker 03

  Why such an extraordinary name? Because she's such an extraordinary girl already, always. So, well done, Saithrid. If you're listening, we love your name and we love you.

• 27:16Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 27:16Speaker 03

  Saturday, the 5th of, because you gave your daughters lovely names.

• 27:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, but they're not difficult names.

• 27:24Speaker 03

  No. One is called Sylvie. Am I allowed to say this?

• 27:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:27Speaker 03

  We've talked about it before. One is called Sylvie. Is that to do with Sylvie and Bruno, the story by?

• 27:32Speaker 04

  No.

• 27:34Speaker 03

  Lewis Carroll?

• 27:35Speaker 04

  Both their names are French. I think I've always liked French.

• 27:38Speaker 03

  And Belle?

• 27:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:40Speaker 03

  As in la belle dame, sans merci, B E double L E.

• 27:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:44Speaker 03

  That's a bit of a challenge.

• 27:45Speaker 04

  I know.

• 27:46Speaker 03

  Because fortunately, she is a great beauty, rich in riz. Um, but if she weren't, it would be, you know, to be called Belle.

• 27:57Speaker 04

  I don't know. I think, um, beauty is possibly by just saying, I'm beautiful, people think you're beautiful.

• 28:06Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, look, it's always worked for you.

• 28:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:08Speaker 03

  So what's wrong?

• 28:09Speaker 04

  It's as much in your attitude as it is in what's actually going on on your face.

• 28:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:15Speaker 03

  On we go. Saturday, the 5th. Yes, this, can I say?

• 28:20Speaker 03

  This podcast is an education. Somebody's muttering, it's certainly taught me something. Saturday the 5th of February 1977. Okay, I'll tell you a ridiculous joke. Yeah. A ridiculous joke.

• 28:32Speaker 03

  I went to the doctor and he told me, I've only got three minutes to live.

• 28:37Speaker 03

  And I said to the doctor, what can you do about it? And the doctor said, well, I can boil you an egg.

• 28:44Speaker 03

  Is that quite a funny, silly joke? I love it. Yeah, good. I was thinking, you're putting that into our show. If we need a lift in the middle of the show. You've just got an old fashioned joke. It's quite nice, isn't it? Yeah. Anyway, Saturday the 5th of February 1977. Seithrit's birth is announced in The Times today. It has a supplement celebrating the Queen's Silver Jubilee. But other than that, I cannot pretend it is a very exciting addition of the paper. On the front page, Rhodesia will contain Rising Gorilla Tide, says Ian Smith. Two held after bomb cash find. Irish terrorist bombs found in Liverpool. The London bomb scares are over. They've opened up the post box in our street again and restaurants like Odin's and Walton's, two of our regulars, no longer have sandbags outside.

• 29:30Speaker 03

  We feel safe on Camden Hill. This is interesting. Reprieved murderess to be White House nanny. Oh, that's quite a story, isn't it? A convicted black murderess, who is an old friend of President Carter's family, was reprieved today in order to take up a post as a child's nursemaid at the White House. Getting good staff isn't easy. Nina, our nanny, has no criminal record so far as we know, though she has known sadness. She doesn't speak of it, but I think she had a son who was killed in a road accident when he was a little boy, 20 years ago. Today, she's very gay, very excited about the new baby, anxious too.

• 30:13Speaker 03

  She's scurrying about the house, checking and double checking that everything is where it should be. I'm going out now. A, to get a present for Bennett, who's our older son, so his nose is not put out of joint by the new arrival. And B, to go to the Middlesex Hospital to collect my darling wife and daughter. Have I ever recorded one of my favourite Monja Danacheski lines? The famous last words of the fatted calf? I hear the young master has returned. It's interesting, you see, a dad who just put things in, you think, all in the day. Later, this is the same day. Well, no fatted calf, but I did do Michelle cheese on toast plus tomato ketchup and a salad. It's what she wanted. She's exhausted.

• 30:58Speaker 03

  She's in bed, asleep now, and looking very lovely in her full white Victorian-style nightgown. I like having a beautiful wife, and I love having a beautiful daughter. Except, of course, the whole thing of the Broken Knights is suddenly coming back to me. The horror of the 2am feed. Michelle will breastfeed her at first, but my turn will come, sitting up in bed with an aching back, completely shattered, holding the bottle at the correct angle so that the water goes down, mustn't get any air in it. Of course, it's worth it, but it's wearying too. I say that having children is the most beautiful thing that has ever happened to me, and it's true, and I mean it.

• 31:42Speaker 03

  But at the same time, there's a part of me that isn't really interested at all. Gosh. That is putting out your feet in the doubt, isn't it? Maybe we'll just stick to the facts.

• 31:54Speaker 04

  No, I think that you've just said what probably a lot of people think. You know, we ask people what their moment of joy is, and people always say, "The birth of my child." And maybe because I'm cynical, and maybe I'm about to say something I shouldn't on a podcast, I often think, "Really?" Because for me, that day was just full of, well, you're giving birth, it's not that fun. And it's full of so much... Complex feeling and it's not what I would describe as a moment of unalloyed joy and pleasure. If you were to ask me, that's being on a fairground ride whizzing around

• 32:36Speaker 04

  or you know, something just silly and fun and exhilarating. Yeah. And having children is really complicated. And when you have a baby, it's really hard work.

• 32:48Speaker 03

  Clearly, I'm remembering here the exhaustion of Bennett and that middle of the night feed. Oh God, I can still feel the pain in my back trying to sit up straight, hold him correctly.

• 32:58Speaker 04

  I mean, you have moments of real happiness when you have a baby, but also moments where you they cry and you just think, oh, please go to sleep. I'm so tired. Yeah.

• 33:10Speaker 03

  This is interesting. It seems I'm typing the diary because next paragraph reads this. Anyway, all's well. Bennett is happy. Nina is the business. Michelle and Seithred are fast asleep. I'm here tapping away as usual. I watched some TV while they slept, but of course, there was nothing on. Saturday night, Jim will fix it. Doctor Who, Mike Yarwood, Starskin Hutch, Match of the Day. I like Mike Yarwood, but the rest of it is not for me. And on ITV, Larry Grayson, then Hawaii Five-O. No, thank you. I watched Peter Hall with Christopher Ishwood on Aquarius and then caught a bit of Peter Oostenoff on Parkinson.

• 33:52Speaker 03

  Quite droll, but essentially a waste of space, time and energy. I should have been writing a sonnet in honour of my daughter. Saturday, the 12th of February, 1977. An amusing letter from Mr. Miller, the bank manager. Well, not altogether amusing. He wants the overdraft reduced. He is hearing somewhat rude noises from further up the line, but he is charming about Seithred. He loves her charming names. You may be interested to know, he writes, that in the bank, we have an account called Sundry Creditor Balances, or SCB for short, into which we put any bits and bobs of money which cannot be immediately applied. And it is delightful to know that

• 34:37Speaker 03

  you have given your daughter such an encouraging start and even in infancy have guided her feet into the right paths by giving her similar initials, so encouraging her to think black instead of red. S C B.

• 34:51Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 34:51Speaker 03

  There you are. So those are Scythrit's initials. Sundry creditor balances.

• 34:55Speaker 04

  Hmm hmm.

• 34:56Speaker 03

  Last night, we went to the National Book League, book rest dinner and auction. Perhaps not an ideal Valentine's night treat. Talked with Gillie Cooper, all dotty dizziness but fun. Catherine Whitehorn, sane, sensible, amused. Lord Longford, full of forgiveness, full of love and nutty as a fruitcake. And John Brain, full of his own doerness.

• 35:19Speaker 04

  Hmm hmm.

• 35:20Speaker 03

  Do you know who John Brain was?

• 35:22Speaker 04

  No.

• 35:22Speaker 03

  Oh, he was once such a famous novelist. For a while, the most famous novelist in the country. He best remember ready for his first novel, Room at the Top.

• 35:31Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 35:31Speaker 03

  Nineteen fifties.

• 35:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:32Speaker 03

  Made into rather a marvellous film.

• 35:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, I know that.

• 35:35Speaker 03

  Tuesday, the eighth of March, nineteen seventy seven. My twenty ninth birthday.

• 35:41Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 35:42Speaker 03

  I'd supper with Michelle and the parents at the Mumtaz and launched my first High Court action. We are pursuing Simon Clarke productions with a thousands owed to us. I discovered Dear Daddy, the play. I made it happen. Noel and I cast it, produced it and presented it. It's a hit. It's the play of the year.

• 36:03Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 36:03Speaker 03

  But we have not received a penny of the royalties due to us. We will have justice. We will have our money.

• 36:12Speaker 03

  Our counsel says we should certainly get justice. He thinks we'll win the case. But he has his doubts as to whether there will be any money to be had once we do. I'm sorry it's come to this, especially because it means that at the moment we're prevented from visiting the Ambassador's Theatre, seeing the cast, et cetera. And if we pursue the action, which we will, Simon Clarke is threatening to close the show. That's not a happy prospect for the company. We hear that Phyllis Calvert, the leading lady, is calling me all sorts of ugly names. But what choice do we have? Clarke is vermin and I look forward to seeing him and his midget girlfriend in court. Right will prevail.

• 36:54Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 36:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:56Speaker 04

  Go Giles.

• 36:57Speaker 03

  Go Giles, but let's see what happens. Sunday, the thirteenth of March, nineteen seventy seven. Bennett's second birthday. We had a very jolly party in his honour. Charlie Alkins, Natasha and Harriet Brown, Harry Morgwyn, Sam Holden, Charlotte Festing, Katie Scarf.

• 37:14Speaker 03

  They were the children of various interesting people. My sister and her husband. A man called Desmond Brown, who became a QC, in fact, head of the bar council. Somebody who was, I think, became the deputy chairman of Sotheby's. Tony Holden was my great friend. Amanda, his wife, wrote opera librettos. Andrew Festing became a very famous portrait painter. His lovely wife Virginia. And Jane Asher, and our cartoonist husband, Gerald Scarf. Anyway. Blues, games, sandwiches, jellies, and a chocolate birthday cake in the shape of a hedgehog. Michelle's birthday tomorrow. The big tea. We are taking a gang to the Caprice.

• 37:55Speaker 03

  And I've organised souvenir matches, menus, and huge tea-shaped chocolates for the occasion. Simon Cadell and Christopher Biggins will be proposing the toasts. Noel will not be telling the story that closed the old Caprice. We don't think Mrs. Festing could cope. It's the one where the old Jewish lady has returned from her husband's funeral. In the kitchen, she lights the stove and gets out her favourite frying pan. Into it goes a knob of butter, a chopped onion, a diced tomato, and assorted seasonings. When it's sizzling nicely, she opens her handbag and pulls out a small parcel wrapped in old newspaper. She undoes the packet, and from it she takes her late husband's withered schwang.

• 38:39Speaker 03

  She tosses it lightly into the frying pan and turns it gently with a wooden spoon. She explains to her old friend Mara, who is looking on aghast. All his life, I had to eat it his way. Today, I'm eating it my way.

• 38:56Speaker 03

  Tuesday.

• 38:56Speaker 04

  That is horrible.

• 38:59Speaker 03

  I don't know whether you can include that or not.

• 39:02Speaker 04

  That's awful.

• 39:03Speaker 03

  But the point of a diary, as I was saying to you at the beginning, Harriet, is you simply record what happened. And this was Noel's story that he said closed the old Caprice. Whenever he had an outrageous story to tell, he would say to close this restaurant, that restaurant, that restaurant. Somebody in the restaurant told him too loudly, and the restaurant was obliged to close as a consequence. And I, I, I, obviously, anyway, there you are. He thought it was funny and clearly I thought it was funny enough to record that. Today is the parents' fortieth wedding anniversary. We are taking them to the Inn on the Park. It's my parents.

• 39:40Speaker 04

  Lovely.

• 39:49Speaker 02

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• 40:22Speaker 03

  Tuesday, the 29th of March, 1977. I'm writing this on the train, travelling back from Norwich, where we've now recorded eight programmes in our series, Chatterbox. My companions are our amiable host, Chris Kelly, and the jolly farmer, Ted Molt. It is budget day. The star attraction has been Leo Absy, a good man, he was an MP. The main feature has been a reduction in basic rate income tax from 35p to 33p, conditional on the trades unions committing to pay claim restraint. The truth is, the government is in freefall. The unions are running amok.

• 41:02Speaker 03

  Inflation is rife, up to 69.5% in just three years. And the government is hanging on in there, only thanks to being shored up by David Steele and his motley band of liberals. It can only end in tears.

• 41:19Speaker 03

  Monday the eleventh of April nineteen seventy seven. I should be returning from Venice right now. Instead, thanks to the British Airways strike and the consequent cancellation of our planned Easter in La Selene Sima, I'm just in from Chaney Walk and Katie Scarf's third birthday party. While the kiddies played, I talked with David Hemmings, who is amusing and amazing and lovely with other people's children as well as his own. He does wonderful close-up magic. Chatting, I mentioned that on Friday, Good Friday, we'd been to see Bruce Forsyth at the Palladium. Crucifying, I imagine, said Jerry Scarf chuckling.

• 42:01Speaker 03

  No, I said, in his way, he's a genius. I agree, said David Hemmings. At the end of the show, when you thought it was all over, did he send the orchestra home and just sit on his own at the piano and do another half hour? Yes, I said. Hemmings laughed. I thought he might. It's an old trick. It saves money on the musicians' union over time and makes the audience feel they're getting something extra and unplanned. These old troopers know what they're doing, don't they? Do you know the name David Hemmings?

• 42:34Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 42:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, he was a famous actor in his day. And he was an artist. I mean, he was best remembered, I think, for starring in the film Blow Up and then later in The Charge of the Light Brigade.

• 42:42Speaker 04

  Mmm, he sounds lovely.

• 42:43Speaker 03

  He wa- oh, he was lovely, he was lovely. I remember years later, I mean, he was so funny. He drank too much, he tried to give it up. So he'd bring his own bottle of sort of elderflower when he came for dinner. And he would do close-up magic, he could make bottles disappear from the table. But when Viagra was new, he arrived for supper. And the moment, the moment he arrived for supper, Michelle opened the door and he pretended to have a huge erection immediately on the side of Michelle. And I don't know how he managed to do this, it was a magic, but a huge-

• 43:14Speaker 04

  Probably the bottle of elderflower.

• 43:15Speaker 03

  It probably was, I mean, it was absolutely massive. And then he spent, and he then spent the entire evening walking around and telling other guests at this dinner party, I'm so sorry, I overdosed on this new drug. Viagra, it's terribly effective. I'm so sorry, madam, it was our hostess that stimulated it. And he would go around sort of holding, trying to hold it down. It was absolutely hilarious. Very lovely man. Friday the twenty ninth of April nineteen seventy seven. Good news. I did the Tiny's Puzzle Party pilot yesterday. I think it's going to happen. Anne Wood is a clucking mother hen and completely new to television and can rub everybody up the wrong way. But somehow she's making it happen. More good news.

• 44:00Speaker 03

  I joined Pa at Elveno's at lunchtime to celebrate the publication of his book on parking law. He is so happy to have it in print at last, and I'm so happy for him. I think he enjoyed the party, but I couldn't be sure. He has been a lawyer, working in this part of London for forty years. He knows Elveno's, and yet I could see he wasn't wholly at ease there. His book is definitive, forward by Sir Robert Mark, Metropolitan Police Commissioner, et cetera. And yet he was self-deprecating about it. Why are we all so insecure all the time? Why do our stomachs never stop churning?

• 44:44Speaker 04

  Was your dad a Gemini?

• 44:45Speaker 03

  Oh, when, July the?

• 44:49Speaker 04

  No, he's a Cancer.

• 44:50Speaker 03

  Oh, he was Cancer. No, it was, yes, July the eleventh.

• 44:54Speaker 04

  Cancer, yeah.

• 44:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, and that's what he died of too.

• 44:57Speaker 04

  Oh, child, very sensitive, Cancerians, very sensitive.

• 45:01Speaker 03

  But look at that, why do our stomachs never stop churning? This is fifty years ago.

• 45:08Speaker 04

  I know.

• 45:09Speaker 03

  And our stomachs are churning, aren't they, Harriet, sometimes?

• 45:12Speaker 04

  Probably people listening have got churning stomachs too. Hopefully rosebud just quietens that down a little bit.

• 45:18Speaker 03

  I don't know today, with our talk of schwongs being fried and film stars with massive faux erections.

• 45:30Speaker 03

  Why do our stomachs never stop churning? Mine is churning this afternoon for two reasons. I attended the meeting of the creditors of Simon Clarke Productions Limited. They are collapsing the company to avoid paying us. They are bastards. I wish them dead. In the end, I will surely get my way. I've had the estimate from Roof and Lining Construction Limited for the soundproofing to the party walls at home. Nine hundred and twenty-seven pounds. Ditto our bastard neighbours. On a lighter note, I've just sent a letter to The Times complaining about the sightlines and acoustics at the National Theatre.

• 46:13Speaker 03

  We went to Volponi on Wednesday, not marvellous, but that wasn't my point. My point was that even with Gilgood and Schofield in the cast and booming, and us at the end of the front row of the circle leaning forward, frequently, we simply couldn't hear. And it's the costliest theatre in the history of the world.

• 46:34Speaker 04

  Giles.

• 46:35Speaker 03

  Tuesday the third of May, nineteen seventy-seven.

• 46:38Speaker 04

  Outraged.

• 46:40Speaker 03

  I've learnt much about life this past twenty-four hours. One, there are bastards out there. I spent yesterday on the telephone to the National Westminster Bank, Customs and Excise, and the Inland Revenue. As creditors of Simon Clarke Productions in liquidation, they get their money before we get ours. I don't know why, but that's the way it is. Worse, we've discovered that a new company, Simon Clarke Presentations, has been set up and is acquiring the assets of Simon Clarke Productions. We're going to win our case with judgment and costs in our favour and still not get a penny. It makes you sick.

• 47:26Speaker 03

  Noel is truly desperate.

• 47:28Speaker 04

  I'm not surprised.

• 47:30Speaker 03

  Two, love is cruel, and a man will say anything so as not to lose the girl.

• 47:39Speaker 03

  Michelle's friend came around last night with the man, we have sworn not to speak his name, her lover, the MP, the ex-minister. She's besotted with him and he's frantic not to lose her. He says he will leave his wife and marry her. He came around to say it at our house, he claimed, so that her friends could witness him making the declaration. The pair of them stayed the night. He's just gone off to the House of Commons. Michelle says he will never leave his wife. They don't. How does she know? Three. However much you have, you never have quite enough. I'm working like a demon. I've just finished the Pairs Quiz Book.

• 48:22Speaker 03

  Today I start on the Big Book of Secrets. Next week I begin my biography of Dan Leino. I work every hour there is, but still steadily the overdraft grows. It's a bugger. But I note that you're still planning a few nights next week at the Manor House Hotel, Castle Coombe? Yes, well.

• 48:41Speaker 04

  Oh, so Giles, your lessons from life, they're interesting, aren't they?

• 48:49Speaker 03

  Nineteen seventy-seven. Well, the bastard's about the money, honesty, people. This happens all the time, you know, people deliberately go into debt, then they fold a company, start a new company, transferring the assets. And I think over the years, that sort of loophole, various governments have tried to tighten it, so it isn't as possible to do now as it was then, but, oh, love is cruel. Well, nothing's new there, is there? This guy, who I won't name him, though he is dead now, um, this guy, MP, minister, he, this girl, he loved her and she loved him, but he was never going to leave, and he was an MP, he was a Conservative MP, he was never going to leave his wife, as Michelle knew. And he was just using Michelle and me in a way, by saying, I'm saying in front of your

• 49:31Speaker 03

  best friends, then of course, clearly, you know, I really mean it, um, so that was the lesson, I suppose. And the thing about not having quite enough money, I'm sure I did feel that, because my father, as you know, never had quite enough money. Um, and clearly I was spending too much.

• 49:49Speaker 04

  Yeah. I'd say what I would say have reading this bit of diaries is really good chunk of diary this Giles, I really enjoyed it, is that you've calmed down a lot. Do you feel that? I mean, you're only twenty nine here, so you you're full of

• 50:05Speaker 03

  Well.

• 50:06Speaker 04

  Kind of energy, but also, I would say, a bit more um, ang- anger and sort of argy-bargy than you are now.

• 50:17Speaker 03

  That's

• 50:18Speaker 04

  I'd say you've mellowed. Yeah, which is good.

• 50:20Speaker 03

  Two things to say. One is, I think people settled down and became husbands and fathers earlier in those days. I'm twenty nine, but I'm already a husband for several years and a father of two children.

• 50:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:31Speaker 03

  I'm on to the second property that I bought.

• 50:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:34Speaker 03

  So that I think, I hope I was taking being a husband and father seriously.

• 50:39Speaker 04

  You are, yeah.

• 50:40Speaker 03

  Uh, I was very exercised about the money.

• 50:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:44Speaker 03

  And so I took all that seriously. I spent a lot of time in correspondence with the bank manager.

• 50:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:49Speaker 03

  Trying to charm him. Uh, and in those days, you could have a relationship with the bank manager. You could go and pitch to them your ideas and your schemes. I was doing a lot of that. And, uh, I don't know, was it at this time? And probably it would be in the doubt if it was, that I discovered the saying of the great General MacArthur.

• 51:09Speaker 03

  Do you know what I mean by General MacArthur?

• 51:10Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 51:11Speaker 03

  Or was it Patton? Maybe it was MacArthur, it was a great American general. Maybe it was General Patton.

• 51:15Speaker 04

  Mm.

• 51:16Speaker 03

  And the line was this. Have a plan. Execute it violently. Do it today.

• 51:23Speaker 04

  Crumbs Giles. Oh, I can see that you you do do that. Yeah.

• 51:29Speaker 03

  Have a plan. Execute it violently. Do it today.

• 51:34Speaker 04

  But I mean, because in this episode, you know, you're writing complaint letters, you're having a spat with the neighbours. Yeah, I don't think you're you're not fighting on all fronts like this anymore, are you? Or maybe you are.

• 51:46Speaker 03

  I don't know. I mean, I I tell you, I was outraged by the National Theatre.

• 51:50Speaker 04

  Mm.

• 51:50Speaker 03

  Because everyone lauded this great building and we loved the theatre, we used to go to it regularly. But it was, in our view, a most uncomfortable building. It wasn't hospitable, you didn't know where you were in it. And then we were discovered the sightlines didn't work. I mean, that's the whole purpose of a theatre. It was outrageous, angry. It's absurd.

• 52:08Speaker 03

  And, yes, I think I began to mellow, curiously, almost on my first day as a member of Parliament, when an MP you may have heard of called David Davis, who was my whip, gave me a quotation by Arthur Balfour. I came, I arrived, and you could see I was sort of bright eyed, bushy tailed, ready for action. And this quotation by Arthur Balfour, being Prime Minister, you know, the beginning of the 20th century, was simply at this line, "Nothing matters very much, and most things don't matter at all."

• 52:46Speaker 04

  Oh, great attitude to have, David Davis.

• 52:49Speaker 03

  So I think for the first half of my life, I was having a plan, executing it violently and doing it that very day. And for the second half of my life, well, I've realised that nothing matters very much, and most things don't matter at all. And as Anthony Scaramucci will tell all of us who listen to Rosebud this Friday, he took the line from Mel Brooks, about to be 100 years of age. Relax, none of us are getting out of this alive.

• 53:21Speaker 03

  So we've got to relax. You've got to let the Gemini, the twins inside you, you've got to let the one that isn't so happy just get up to speed with the one that is happy.

• 53:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 53:29Speaker 03

  I want those two twins walking in harness.

• 53:32Speaker 04

  Okay, yeah, I'll have a word with her tonight.

• 53:35Speaker 03

  And keep us posted.

• 53:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 53:36Speaker 03

  Um, and when you start your diary again, simply say what you had for breakfast, what you had for lunch, what the weather was like, what was happening in the world, so much is happening in the world, who you're meeting on the podcast, what they said, you just record what's happening. We don't need to know what mood you were in.

• 53:52Speaker 04

  Okay, yeah, good, good note. Yeah, good advice.

• 53:56Speaker 03

  That's it. So, um, thank you very much for being with us on The Diaries. Next week, we've got so many good people coming up. I hope it's a wonderful actor who's about to appear in the West End in Sorano de Bergerac, which is one of my favourite plays by Edmond Horst.

• 54:15Speaker 03

  Possibly the best play written by a Frenchman in the 19th century. It's Adrian Lester. We've recorded that conversation. He's a beautiful actor. He has a beautiful soul. You will love that episode. That's next Tuesday.

• 54:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:31Speaker 03

  So lots of excitement.

• 54:32Speaker 04

  Woohoo.

• 54:32Speaker 03

  Woohoo. And don't forget, if you want to see Harriet and me in person, we'll be appearing in a show called Up Memory Lane at the Edinburgh Fringe, all of August, 4pm every day. It's basically me with a twist of Rosebud and Harriet Jane. It's not Rosebud. It's a show.

• 54:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:50Speaker 03

  And there's some fun in it, some laughter, some songs, maybe the odd tear, and we hope you will enjoy it. And afterwards, there will be a meet and greet organised by Michelle, my long-suffering wife. So do come and join us in Edinburgh. Meanwhile, join us for the next episode of Rosebud on Friday. That's it. You can say the line.

• 55:11Speaker 04

  Cue the music.

• 56:10Speaker 00

  I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone. And I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh. Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them.

• 56:23Speaker 01

  Everybody listen up.

• 56:24Speaker 00

  Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade in needed. And the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.

• 56:40Speaker 02

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