Monday August 21, 1978

Mrs Christine Newton, Princess Margaret and the Hon Gerald Lascelles are leaping around in their carpet slippers today tearing open birthday cards & presents, and devouring large chunks of iced fruit cake. I haven't laid eyes on Mrs Newton since the day of her marriage in August last year. She may be dead. She may be expecting a multiple birth to fill the bedrooms of her pleasant semi-detached property.

Sarah was taken ill at the YP with pains in her chest (again). She looked awfully pale. At 10 we kicked her off home. She told me that my letter to Delia from Nunwoman, Leaper and Nunwoman Solicitors had Barbara Wheeler wetting herself yesterday.

Met Jacq for lunch at the Ostlers for a few pints and cheeseburgers. The friendly, neolithic bar~tender, who is deaf as a post, always brings the wrong food and drink. Jacq, for instance, had a brandy and Babycham followed by a Gin Fizz ~ and we only ordered lager.

Tonight: with Dad, Dave and Lynn to Lawn Road. I made a start 'emulsioning' the lounge. Worked until 10:30.

John called to see Mama tonight. He moves to Stranraer in two weeks and starts his new job on September 11.

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Friday August 18, 1978

Full Moon 11:14

Helped Mum with her shopping this morning which was a rare occurrence. In the afternoon I compiled a letter to Delia (in the guise of my solicitor Nunwoman, Leaper & Nunwoman).

Worked this evening at the YP. At 10 I joined Jacq at the Central for half an hour or so. The people in that pub are incredibly revolting and gruesome. Dregs of the earth would be putting it mildly.

Tonight my taxi driver seemed to be very well educated. No, he didn't insist that he's the world's leading authority on snakes, and no, he hadn't witnessed Mau Mau atrocities in Kenya. He made some intelligent remarks about microfilm and the Leeds Intelligencer which surprised me. They really ought to give inquisitive people like him an outlet for their energies in some sort of polytechnic. Doing essays on 'Taxis through the Ages'. How about 'The Influence of the Cab Driver on Charles Darwin and his subsequent theory of relativity'? Or, 'In what way did the gun~boat policy of Lord Palmerston affect the taxi fares in Leeds after 1861'? Or ....... King Louis XVI's Flight to Varenne: Would it have succeeded with Telecabs? Discuss.

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