Saturday January 12, 1980

_. Up at 9:30. Poor Tony Blackburn is on the radio. He's in decline at the moment.

Out at 10 to Leeds where I got the 11:30 coach to Manchester. A boring journey with only two fellow passengers. I sat on the back seat buried beneath my copy of 'The Times'. Fred Emery, in the paper, explained that Mrs Thatcher's TV image is fading. His excuse for coming out with this silly remark is because none of us can recall what she told us in a ministerial broadcast last Tuesday. I've forgotten the opening lines of 'A Tale of Two Cities' but certainly don't think the image of Charles Dickens is fading. When has the contents of a party political broadcast ever embedded itself into the hearts and minds of a listener? I have always taken it for granted that people switch off mentally at the sight of a crocodile-like party worker holding up a tin of Heinz beans whilst expounding the virtues of the governments prices and incomes policy.

To the Hollywood Hotel for 1:30. Spend the afternoon in the pool room. Not playing pool - good heavens no - just drinking in the pool room. Oblivion between 3 and 5. Tonight to the Georgian restaurant - that is Garry, Steve, Dave and I. Sadly, my steak was burnt to a crisp, but the others enjoyed it. Afterwards just Dave and I went to Rumours, the discotheque. Drank so much whisky throughout the evening that I had to have an alcohol free interval. People in clubs are looking so much younger these days. I could become quite worried if I thought about it.

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