Wednesday February 11, 1976

I get up at two minutes to 8 and discover that I've mislaid Jim Rawnsley somewhere. A thin layer of snow covers the ground and John has some difficulty getting (his car) up the Blackwell's drive, and I find myself shovelling ice and snow like Hell, whilst he scatters grit from a bucket.

Catch a bus to Leeds and arrive at the YP just before nine o'clock feeling tired, run-down and shagged out.

See in the papers that Eleanor Dixie, daughter of the late Sir Wolstan Dixie, 13th Baronet, is going to claim the title for herself. She fails to se why women are excluded from holding peerages and baronetcies. I'm in total agreement with this. In fact I decide to write to the Garter King of Arms or someone to lodge my strong approval of Miss Dixie's claim. The Equal Opportunities Act should really have ended this discrimination when it came into force. Opening the peerage to both sexes will help slow down the rate of extinctions, and that can't be a bad thing. Certain ancient titles can of course he inherited by either sex, but these only number 14 or 15, and the total number of peerages amount to over 500 I think.

Meanwhile: back to the office. At lunchtime I still feel listless and washed-out & so I seek an audience of Kathleen, and she tells me to go home. Eileen thinks I'm joking and thinks I'm secretly meeting someone in town, but I get the 2.30 bus out of Leeds.

Lynn and Dad are in at home. Poor Lynn is still one of the unemployed 'school-leaver' types and she says that her qualifications are too good for most offices where she's applied for jobs. They all want dumb, large-breasted blondes, with pea-like brains, just to make the tea and type envelopes. Lynn just isn't the office junior type. She feels desperate really because she's not a lazy sort of kid and staying at home all day just revolts her.

I sit in the lounge with a cup of tea browsing through Burke's Peerage planning my line of attack to get all these wronged would-be peeresses acknowledged.

I got in the bath at 8.30 and Carole came round at 9 o'clock to see if I am still in the land of the living. She goes at 9.20. I stand and watch her skip happily down the lane.

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Tuesday December 23, 1975

I am infuriated by an article in todays Daily Telegraph. Several Labour MPs feel that Princess Anne should be second in line of succession to the throne, instead of fourth. They think her case should be taken before the Equal Opportunities Commission and that it would be a fine gesture if the Queen was to decree that her daughter, and all future royal princesses, should be given precedence in order of birth and not by sexual limitation. It is a futile and ridiculous idea.

I've never thought of myself as a male chauvenist pig before, but it seems I'm going to be classed as one if I continue in this present line of thought.

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