TUESDAY 2nd MARCH ‘10

To Chipping Norton in sunny weather, to the strains of Gilbert and Sullivan and the taste of Mr. Kipling’s excellent apple and blackberry pies. Greedy pig that I am, I ate all six.

And Chipping Norton exactly the same as when I left.

Except a message from my agent to say he is having lunch with the powers that be next Tuesday.

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MONDAY 1st MARCH '10

WALES.

To the mountains! To Horseshoe Pass, to be exact and the staggering views from the top worth the effort. It is not my first visit to the area, of course. Many years ago I raced over this terrain on my bicycle and although I remembered very little of the scenery on this occasion I was impressed at my youthful prowess.

Tea and cake taken at the summit, naturally, (This is not true. They were taken in the village at the foot of the climb but 'at the summit' reads better.

And in the evening, to the theatre, to see Alan Ayckbourn’s play “My Wonderful Day”.  My hearing aid (sustained in a bomb blast in London and not, as has been suggested, the result of my having fought in World War 2!) let me down when it mattered, and I was unable to hear a single word.

But when we got back a soothing cup of Oxo calmed me down and put me in a mood to sleep.

Ssssh!

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SUNDAY 28th FEBRUARY '10

To the ice cream farm, of course. It has expanded in all directions. But the flavour remains. So I tucked in. Wouldn't you?

I don't remember leaving.

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SATURDAY 27th FEBRUARY '10

To Chester, in good weather and en route, taking in a bicycle race somewhere north of Telford. The new season is here! The Kaisermobile in fine fettle and the music selected for the journey - a Spring selection - ideal for purpose.

Tim and Margaret in good form  In the evening to an excellent meal. 
Lots of fun and a great deal of catching up to do.

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Disbelief as I watched golfer Tiger Woods apologise for his off-the-green behaviour tonight. I cannot understand how Mrs. Wood could allow the man she claims to love to make a public spectacle of himself in this way. And in front of his children, too. But to my mind his behaviour is nothing like as bad as the example set before children by the cretinous footballer David Beckham and his many tattoos. What a Wally.

Such deep thinking calls for restorative something or other. So I partook of some jelly and ice cream.

That did the trick.

Scrumptious!

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Jubilation as the sparkling Kaisermobile speeds along the A44 once more – making light of the snow which arrived overnight.

To Henley then and for a working lunch at the St, George and Dragon in Wargrave. Fishcakes and spinach. Excellent. And some good work done. But we are still awaiting a reply from the national daily newspaper that has been sitting on our strip for a year.

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I am baffled, yes, baffled, by the conduct of the mollycoddled Kaisermobile, which although smothered by tender loving care persists in letting me down when it should be rallying round.

This morning, for example, I hurried from the flat and sprang into the vehicle for a lunchtime appointment with young Bernard Cookson in Henley.

Plonk! Said the battery. Dead, Dead. Dead.

No Henley. No Bernard. No creative flow. And no one to help.

Except Wheelers garage.

It is still there. Seven o’clock in the evening and it is still in Wheeler's garage..

Full of oil and delicious petrol – and no spark. No movement. No get up and go. And talk, alas of a new battery…

How can this be? And why me?

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To the hospital in Banbury to have my hearing aid checked. Lots of old people hanging about, so I hung in with them. No one in authority and I stopped sighing and tut-tutting when I realised no one could hear me. After an hour or so someone asked me what I wanted. I was out of the place in two minutes.

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A leisurely drive back to Chipping Norton through the lanes. The only trouble is the lanes are so far outside London by the time one reaches them one is practically home.

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The purchase of my first Oyster card. What a good idea this is. For those without one it is a must. And by adroit use of this boon to mankind, to Leicester Square to join a bunch of old friends for a reunion in memory of Rolex Reggie. Champagne flowed. Most enjoyable to see familiar faces. I took a stroll around Covent Garden. Nothing
has changed. Lots of football and rugby supporters filling the bars. The tubes crowded. Seems football rules.

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To London –and in particular, to Barnet Hill to spend the weekend at my sister’s. And after a meal (plaice) to the cinema to see a George Clooney film “ Up in the Air” praised by the critics but a complete waste of time.

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THURSDAY 28th JANUARY '10

Having paid for the rear view mirror (ouch!), to Henley via the  highways and byways where I took lunch with Bernard at the George and  Dragon in Wargrave. Haddock risotto – and very nice too.

A lunch however, overshadowed by lack of news from the national  newspaper that has been holding our cartoon strip “ Two Too Many” for  eight months.

(When I first started in the business I walked into the “Sunday  Times' with my strip ‘Oddbod' and walked out with a contract that  same day.)

That's progress.

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Heartbreak today when I went into the barbers, intending to have my beard trimmed in the style of composer Camille Saint-Saens (‘Carnival of the Animals’) and found a young man already in the chair having a thick mop of black hair shorn. Thick and lustrous black hair as that which once adorned my own head being jettisoned in chunks left right and centre all over the floor! Apparently the kid is about to join the navy. I have always said thick lustrous hair is wasted on the young.

And the swarthy barber was unable to remember the Saint-Saen cut (“if you can bring a photograph in I may be able to do something”) He also implied that my beard was not really suitable for styling. I believe he muttered the word ‘scraggy’ but cannot swear to it. Between you and me I am losing confidence in the fellow.

This afternoon a dramatic change of fortune. My dentist has worked wonders with the gnashers. I have the smile of a film star. Wow! That is some smile. That is some – hold on - not a touch of the dago, is there? Touch of something, though. Could it be - maybe it’s Warren Beatty? Please let it be Warren Beatty. I think it is Warren Beatty!

Yippee!

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Tonight I watched “Arena’s Tribute to Harold Pinter” on T.V.

I always thought Pinter was rubbish and I see no reason to change my mind. The audience, obviously the Pinter fan club, laughed on cue. Pathetic. Tired of his famous pauses, I switched channels. “ Lewis.” That was boring too. Not a good night for television.

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To Banbury and a heart stopping moment on the return whenan oncoming vehicle took off my rearview mirror in Bluxham (a village where the church steeple is too big by far).The offending vehicle did not stop and there was no room to turn.

A visit to the raggle taggle garage nearby was called for and their mechanical genius sorted the thing out in no time at all. He also sorted out my radio, splendid fellow that he is - and I am once more a happy man.

Pip! Pip!

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To Henley and with Bernard to the nearby George and Dragon in Wargrave for an excellent lunch (trout). The subject under discussion the future of our strip “ Two Too Many” which is still under consideration by a national newspaper. It has been thus for seven months. Quite ridiculous.

(Alan Bennett once told me that when the BBC held onto one of his plays for a similar time he wrote asking if they were renting it!)

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The snow is gone. Just like that. No trouble or fuss. So I leapt into the Kaisermobile and went for a spin. Just like that. Yippee!

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Chipping Norton is a soggy mess. We have the aged and infirm slithering and sliding all over the place due to this ‘no cleaning away the snow from one’s front door’ thing. Disgraceful.

I’m all right. I’m sitting here in Whistlers, where I generally take my morning tea. I am sitting in what I call Memory Corner. I call it by that name because they play tapes from way back. At the moment they are playing Charles Aznavour singing “She”.

South African Herbert Kretzmer, who wrote the lyrics for the song, once told me about the writing of the piece.

He had been asked by the BBC to write a linking song for a series of six T.V. shows about women. Somehow, I forget how, singer songwriter Aznavour was involved.

Herbie met the diminutive Frenchman Aznavour who produced a lot of stuff he had written over the years. Herbie said he would rather work with something new. Miffed, Aznavour played a note on the piano. It was the note on which the song ”She” starts. Herbie told me in that second the song was written.

“That’s it. “ said Herbie. “She.”

“She what?” asked Aznavour, puzzled.

“She.” Herbie repeated. "The song is 'She'."

He said that Aznavour still did not understand. But he came back to England, mission completed. "The song did well for both of us" he told me. He went on to write the lyrics for the musical Les Miserables (still running)

Memory Corner.

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Snow snow snow – surprise surprise surprise – whoever would have thought it? Certainly not the people who are talking global warming, who, if they knew of it, kept it to themselves. These are the people who are asking for fearsome sums of money to save the planet. They can’t forecast a deep freeze and they can see a world in peril. Pull
the other one, Jock.

In spite of it I managed to reach the Kaisermobile in the car park and push some of the snow off the roof. About ten inches deep. Mind boggling.

As is a purported photograph of myself taken by Amy Bason from France, a seven year old from Bordeaux, who has e-mailed what she claims is a picture of myself in a Chipping Norton hostlery. It portrays a rather portly gentleman with thinning hair, a beard and disapproving expression. (I should put him down as a local landowner,
or church dignitary). I told her to clear off. Nothing like me.

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The Weather Dance I have been performing all morning is having no effect. The stuff is still coming down. Chipping Norton is like a ghost town. There is no Wednesday market and even the Post Office is closed. My dental appointment, scheduled for this afternoon, has of course, been cancelled until next week.

And the idiot and mostly bovine children of this area, freed from the yoke of school, are spending their time throwing snowballs at the old and infirm.

My TV set, which has been giving me intermittent trouble since the start of the bad weather has, since I dropped the remote control a few minutes ago, sprung into wonderful and astonishing life. It is now brighter, louder and clearer than it has ever been. And I may be imagining things, but I am receiving channels I have never seen before.

And all these channels are talking about is whether Teletubby Brown is the right person to lead the party into the next election.

Of course he is not. If his supporters think that, they are out of their minds. They will lose the election and the party will disappear into the mists of time.

Both he and Blair have blood on their hands and they think the country has forgotten this. I doubt it.

To tell you the truth I’m the guy ought to run the country. I’m the man. First thing. No snow. Camelot weather is the order of the day. No snow though. That is my first election promise.

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The snow lies deep and crisp and even. A plague on the damn stuff. I cleaned the car this morning. Look at these blisters. Caused through cleaning the car which is now a white lump in the car park. It lies beneath a blanket of snow. Everything around lies beneath a blanket of snow. This country is not prepared for snow, We go to pieces at
the first signs of snow. I do, anyway.

It is one of the reasons why there is a sunny picture to greet visitors who are visiting this site for the first time. I want to cheer them up. I want them to feel that Summer is not far away.

This is where television channels slip up. They show Winter sports in Winter. Cresta runs and Eddie the Eagle from morning till night. Completely wrong. Bad thinking. You’ve got snow outside? Bring on the sun. Bring on Glyndebourne and straw hats and picnics from hampers. Bring on the surfers and the beachboys. Yachts is good.

Lets have the lazy hazy days of summer. You know what they should do? Make me the Head of Winter television. I’d have palm trees and garlands from morning till night. No Cresta Runs and Eagle Eddies on my schedules. Just sunshine and sarongs and cool drinks...Yippee!

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The New Year a let- down. No celebrations for this guy. Instead, a muffled curse in the direction of those who have stood –and are still standing in the way of my incredible come-back.

The plan was – and still is- albeit somewhat delayed - that 2010 was to see the start of the new strip fellow cartoonist Bernard Cookson I have been working on for some time. Entitled “ Two Too Many”, it should have started in a national newspaper and gone on to become a T.V. situation comedy. Alongside this the acceptance of a new novel “ The Golden Guy”

These projects, written, completed and rarin’to go are all held up by nameless people in various departments of the media. And have been for months. Months.

No rejection notes, as used to be the norm. NOTHING. Not a word from anyone.

And this in spite of high tech stuff like computers and mobile phones and all the stuff we are told will make communication easier.

Happy New Year? Are you crazy?

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