Friday February 16, 1979

_. Slept until 11. Wrapped up well before leaving for Sarah's at Horsforth at 12 o'clock. Mum was grumpy because I was venturing out when I'm supposed to be ill and off work. To Ivory Towers [238, West End Lane, Horsforth] where I collected a pile of clothes ordered from the Grattans catalogue. Delia, Sarah and I went first to Morrisons and then a wallpaper shop. It wasn't an easy thing selecting wallpaper. We all had very different opinions. Just why was I there?
They are lovely women.

Home at 5:30. Tonight, to the Shoulder with Sue, Peter, Chippy, Debbie, "Floo" and his moll. Quite boring really. Peter M, Chris R and Steve came in and I chatted with them to break the monotony.  Home at 11, sober and dull. I argued with Motherdear about something ridiculous.

Pnuemocallaghanicosis is sweeping the country. It affects its victims in a serious, embarrassing way. The symptoms are a] not wanting to work, b] an inability to dispose of refuse or move the bins, c] the appetite is unaffected and d] the victim is still quite capable of consuming vast quantities of alcohol, e] he looks outwardly healthy but is dim witted and slow to grasp the situation, and f] he becomes belligerent to those who might want to boost the economy, or be inclined to labour for the greater good. The only known cure is to give the victim an immediate pay rise of over 50 per cent.

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Thursday February 15, 1979

_. Like most Britons I am now suffering from 'pnuemocallaghanicosis'. I have taken to my warm bed with a book.

Meanwhile, outside we are heading for a second ice-age. Giant mammoths & fur clad sabre tooth beasts are roaming around, and are quite the vogue. Old age pensioners, clutching red pension books, are being encased in glacial formations. Archaeologists in the year 4062 will be gasping and falling over themselves with delight on finding these perfectly preserved, if solid OAPs.

Debbie Harry.

Snuggled all day with the tale of Mrs Jordan and the Duke of Clarence, aka King William IV by Jean Plaidy. I will have to look at some serious work on this very interesting subject. I did read something years ago, before the ice came. I did emerge from my pit at tea time and later sat looking interested and alert with Jim and Margaret.

Saw Debbie Harry on Top of the Pops on the BBC and have decided that Miss Harry is perhaps the most perfect specimen of the female sex ever to have walked the planet. She is the twentieth century's answer to Helen of Troy, Lillie Langtry and Bessie Braddock.

To bed feeling slightly better but resolved not to attempt the YP tomorrow.






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Wednesday February 14, 1979

_. Valentine's Day.

I have a glowing red nose, dribbling over all and everything. More snow over night and it was a three and a half hour journey from Guiseley to Leeds. We [Jim R and I] left home just after 8, and I didn't enter the YP until 11:25am. Spend the day sniffling and coughing, generally out of breath and feeling abominable.

Reginald Maudling died early today from hepatitis. He was renowned for excessive drinking so no doubt the endless flood of booze hastened his departure. He fell from favour over his part in the John Poulson Affair and only last month he was mentioned in the scandal surrounding Sir Eric Miller. Maudling isn't going to be missed by many in his party.

Home in better time, but the snow is hurtling down again.

Today is Valentine's Day and I didn't get one bloody card. Mind you, I didn't expect one because I am out of favour with the majority of my female acquaintances. Carole is enraptured by Mick Lynch, and Jacq won't send me one because I failed to send her a Christmas card, or indeed a birthday card earlier this month. As for Christine, she appears to have severed diplomatic relations since Christmas. I've written twice recently and both epistles have been ignored by the tenant of Glenview Hall. Don't worry. I don't think it's serious. Only slightly disconcerting. CB is much taken up with Doreen at the moment.

Ate a large meal at 5:30 and then went into paroxysms of sneezing. Am I perhaps on my way to join Reggie Maudling on his journey to eternal peace and tranquillity?

David of Stockport phoned at 9 and was in good spirits joking about Martyn. Retired to bed at 10:17pm with several paracetemols.


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Tuesday February 13, 1979

_. I am sniffling and glowing this evening undoubtedly struck down by a heavy cold. Dad says it is only to be expected the way I go around only half-dressed in the middle of winter. This is rubbish. Three hundred people at the YP are all sneezing and germ spreading and so it would be something of a miracle for me to escape.

Rubbish is piling up in the streets thanks to the striking refuse collectors. This filth could give us all the bubonic plague, or 'Black Death', and this would put my piffling, unassuming chill into perspective, wouldn't it?

[I do apologise that my handwriting is different because I am writing this in bed. ] I have laid hands on one of Mummy's books. It's by Jean Plaidy and entitled 'The Goddess of the Green Room' based on the life of Dorothea Jordan, mistress of King William IV. I don't usually read this slushy fiction, but after glancing at it I find it quite interesting. If anyone found me with it I'd go crimson. Surely, to read anything is better than not taking up a book at all?

Saw a bit of TV tonight and played cards with Susan and Peter. I just cannot stop sneezing.

The Queen is still in Kuwait and spent the day visiting oil fields. What else is there to look at?  We are told that the Prince of Wales is to spend a day at No 10, Downing Street and sit in a Cabinet meeting. This too is making history. The Queen is making sure that her successor will have some intimate political knowledge, and that an 'Edward VII' situation will never be repeated.

Heard on the late news that Reginald Maudling, the former Tory Cabinet minister, is on his last legs. His kidneys have given way.

To bed with Dorothea Jordan at 11pm.

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Monday February 12, 1979

_. Thick, deep snow fell today. Sod it. The white stuff had just begun to clear, and now we are knee deep again. Ah well, I suppose we are better of than those in Iran. The Ayatollah Khomeini is now at the top of my assassinations list, along with Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn, Willie Hamilton and Dame Gracie Fields.

Trouble at mill over Miss Jacqui ______________________________.

It seems that the brief affair between Sarah and John MacMurray is o'er. She tells me that he will no longer be called upon to escort her to Leeds RL matches or performances at Opera North. I didn't say much about this because I fail to see why she can go off with Richard Burke every weekend, whilst Mr Mac is doomed to a life of fidelity lightened only by the occasional excursion to the Leeds Grand Theatre every few weeks or so. ________.

Sarah says that she has heard from Marilyn Wheeler who has told her I was bored stiff on my recent lunch date with Delia at Len's Bar. Me, bored? Marilyn was sat like a heap of rotting fish on a dock side! Delia phoned Sarah and I passed on my regards telling Sarah to send love from her 'bored nephew'.

Home in a snow drift and ate everything in sight. The house was filled with the aroma of Karen's wedding cake, all three tiers of it.

Watched the news. The Queen has made history by being the first British monarch to visit Kuwait. It is unprecedented for a woman to be formally received in an Arab state, and one Arabic newspaper has described Her Majesty as being "a highly honoured honorary gentleman". Quite ridiculous.

Bed at 12:37am.

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Sunday February 11, 1979

_. Septuagesima. 

Slept in the upstairs sitting room at the Hollywood Hotel with David G and Peter. I had a rough night because the zip fastener on my sleeping bag had broken, and a draught, and a non-alcoholic one at that, whistled through my underclothes far into the night. Meanwhile, Peter and David slept like babies. Susan spent the night reclining like the Empress Josephine in Dave's gold-embossed Empire-line four poster. We had greasy eggs and bacon at 11. Sue had not slept well. The shear enormity of the bed had frightened her.

Breakfast over with it was opening time at the bar downstairs. We were soon in the smoke-filled Hollywood. Joined by Billy, Garry and Steve B. Billy asked me to remember him to my Mum. [He is only five years younger than she is]. He probably fancies her. Quite strange having ancient friends.

Susan worries about this circle of friends because she cannot see any progress been made or any attempts to find partners of the opposite sex. She thinks all males over the age of thirteen should be having regular sex with a long-term partner.

We left at 4 o'clock and got home in just under an hour.

Joined by Hilda and Tony again. She brought a box full of ingredients for Karen's wedding cake. We drank wine and watched TV. Saw 'Julius Caesar' by the bard himself (BBC2) and then Alan Bates in 'A Kind of Loving' . They left at about 1am after the film. Thora Hird is a marvellous actress.

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Saturday February 10, 1979

_. Delia phoned to thank me for the good time yesterday. She told me Sarah had been on the phone. She had been out on the town in London with seventy Swedes. The only English they know is: "When can we go to the pub, please?"

Are the Swedes a very boring race? Am I horribly misled perhaps?

I forgot to report yesterday that I went down to the Regent pub in Guiseley and asked for a bar job. "Don't ring us, we'll ring you" was the kind of reply I received from the landlord.

Peter arrived at 1:30 and we left for Stockport. Arrived at 2:50 just in time for last orders at the bar. Met Dave G, Bill and Garry. I think Sue thinks Billy is a groping fiend. Later we crawled about the town by taxi. I was refused entry in Rotters disco - the bouncer citing the length of my hair as his excuse! So Peter, Sue, Dave and I found refuge in Rumours, a cavern-like discotheque of high standing. Very enjoyable. Why didn't Billy and Garry join us?

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