Friday August 21, 1981

 _. A day of bliss at the YP today thanks to the absence of 'Mrs Slocombe' who is attending a golf tournament at Wetherby with her boyfriend who is the double of [President] Jimmy Carter. Such a dead ringer in fact that people stop him in the street and ask for his autograph. Kathleen did a night shift and so just Sarah and the new girl, Margot [who has replaced 'Shazzo'], who is becoming more and more quiet as the days roll on. Quieter than a mouse. 

Club Street.

I couldn't make any personal calls from the office until after 4 because the line in the library was out of order. Phoned Ally. A house on Club Street [number 9] is for sale and so I phoned Whitegates to be told, to my horror, that the property is on the market for a mere £6,000. Surely, something must be wrong with the place. Ally paid that two years ago, but the market has gone wild since then. I also phoned Mama to remind her we'll be away for the weekend. She had no startling news.

Home at 6. Marlene phoned asking me to get her some news cuttings from tonight's EP where Mark is mentioned doing something in the Peak District. ________.

Dave G phoned just to confirm the weekend orgy. Watched 'Casablanca' with Bogart and Bergman. Exquisite. I'm still on with Antonia Fraser's Charles II. I went to Lidget Green library and took out a biography of the Duke of Edinburgh [just to look up one particular fact]. It's a painful volume actually. Ally is buried behind another Agatha Christie.

-=-