Thursday, 12 March, 2009

To Wardour St. for rehearsals. Immediate resistance from everyone else concerned when I issued them with identical mustard yellow jerseys and gave them some 19th century folk songs to perform but I prevailed. “All modern music is impure,” I informed the quivering wrecks, “and we must retrieve an essential Thursday afternoon continuum spirit.” Manzanera protested about the lute and so did Mackay with the crumhorn but they gritted their teeth & we went through a satisfactory “In My Liverpool Home” & “Lay For My Nadger” & they saw my point. Bryan encouraged the shift. “I did Carrickfergus years ago, what’s wrong with you feeble nellies?” he chuckled. Thompson muttered something about this being worse than “the fucking Fleetwood Foxes.” I’ve no idea what he was babbling on about. Took Prof Susan Greenfield & Bradley Walsh to Joe Allen’s for lunch where I outlined my plan for a new TV quiz show about corporal punishment. They agreed that I should approach Dale to host. Afterwards: sped to Goring & Streatley with Dan Lanois where we voiced some mallards. Acutely sunny but fundamentally uninvolving. Back home at 5 O’Clock, as Dan predicted. Bryan was sitting watching The Weakest Link and sporting a red nose. I can’t leave him alone for a second. Tradiola. Donald Peers’ insouciant jowls and a jejune array of puce condiment sets.