Monday October 16, 1978

Full Moon 07:09 First Day of Tabernacles (Succoth)

There's speculation all day about the conclave of cardinals. The voting, they say, is proving more difficult this time and Rome has been shrouded beneath clouds of black smoke all day. However, the boys in velvet made a decision and at about 7:30 the news was telephoned to me by a frantic Ursula, who could find no photographs, and before the BBC news flash, and the residents of 58, Hawksworth Lane where the first people this side of Leeds to discover that the new Pope is a non~Italian for the first time since 1522. The new pontiff is in fact a Pole. In fact he's the Cardinal Archbishop of Kraków, whose name I cannot attempt to pronounce (Karol Józef Wojtyła). No doubt my Aunt Jadwega is skipping around in her massage parlour showering kisses upon the residents of Mapplerley, Notts. So, it's failure for poor Basil Hume, but amazing that the cardinals have gone for an outsider. Do our purple friends want to keep well in with the Eastern bloc now that Italy is on the verge of going completely red? Dad's immediate reaction was to ask if the new pope is a Bulgarian. On the news Angela Rippon told us that during the Second World War Pope John Paul II worked in a Nazi~occupied umbrella factory. (Unless you know about Georgei Markov you'll be in the dark about this little joke).

Watched a violent film starring Burt Reynolds. Mum says she objects to paying the tv licence to watch such rubbish, but this Mary Whitehouse attitude is quite wrong. I see nothing wrong with a spot of violence. Bed at 12:05 am.

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Friday September 29, 1978

Out of bed at 6:58am and plunged into a hot bath. Whilst tucking into my hot porridge oats I plugged into the radio news at 7:30 and was astounded to hear that Pope John Paul had died in the night from a heart attack after a reign of only 33 days. It's the shortest pontificate since Pope Stephen in 700 AD, or so. I find this hard to take in. Quite ridiculous that all the cardinals are going to have to crawl back to Rome for another conclave.

I spent most of the day playing with the late Pope's pictures. Chris Bye came into the office cheerfully waving a fiver & laughingly told us that on Aug 26 he'd been into Ladbroke's and placed a bet that the new pope would only live for 33 days. Yeah, right. It would finish it off very nicely now if our own Cardinal Hume was elected pontiff. A good English lad at the Vatican to show these Italians a thing or two.

Mum and Dad went off to Scotland this afternoon to see John and Maria in Stranraer. They took JPH's birthday presents with them and are staying for the festivities and returning on Sunday evening.

Tonight I battled through driving rain to see Jacq in Leeds. We met at 8:30 and went to the Central, where she became quite legless on cider. I intended going on a pub crawl but we enjoyed the loud, pulsating music of the disco in the pub, and we stayed until 10:30. She frowned when I suggested moving on to Len's Bar. She knows Sarah hangs out there on Fridays.

I got the last bus out of town at about 11. Sue and Pete were watching TV. He stayed the night. Young love.

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