Alan Bennett Joins Twitter!

[Huxleys Babkins]

All this World Cup palaver minds me of the time Alan Yentob asked me to write a Talking Heads to commemorate Hillsborough. I knew nothing of football on account of my gentle persuasion so went down to Macclesfield Town to do some research. Within 20 ghastly minutes of smelly Bovril, shouting and swearing (not mine, I hasten to add), I'd left the stadium and popped into John Lewis' café for a cup of sweet tea and a Quiche Lorraine.

[Glebe]

Got back from Waitrose to discover Morrissey's voice on the answering machine thing. He's working on a biography of Arthur Askey, and wants me to come over to his LA mansion to hammer it out with him. Had my things all packed, when I suddenly realised it was seven o' clock and the chemist round the corner had closed. Now I can't get me extra-strong sun tan lotion. Bother! And I was so looking forward to going!

[wosl]

A trip to the opticians.  I've needed some new glasses ever since my last good pair got damaged by Simon Callow accidentally sitting on them four times at Dale Winton's memorial service.  It's a hot day, and the staff look red-faced and stressed as I enter.  To buck them up a bit I mention that I'd once toyed with the idea of working behind the till of a 'blind bat mongers', as 'Auntie' Horace used to call them, before getting into Oxford and taking Beyond The Fringe to New York with Peter, Jonathan and Dud.  As I walk towards the rows of glasses, the staff seem to suffer some sort of collective febrile episode.  Like dervishes clad in cloth with a worryingly high synthetic fibre content, they wheel and repeatedly bash themselves into the display cases, causing every set of frames in the shop to be destroyed.

_{(Again Alan, you really must try to be snappier)}

[Huxleys Babkins]

On the way back from the BAFTAs we stopped off at the services for a bite to eat. Bought the People's Friend in WH Smiths for Mother as she's housebound now and it was only when we were halfway up the M6 that I remembered she'd passed 20 years prior. I tried to return it at the Smiths in Manchester Central but they were having none of it so I left it on Mother's grave just in case. Came back the next day to find a five pound note, a glass of milk and a packet of garibaldi. Thanks Mam.

[Glebe]

My granddaughter invited me to come along to a sort of dance music festival thing she's going to. I haven't been to a 'gig' since that Paul Simon concert in the '90s, but crush a grape, you only live once... still crazy after all these years!

At the festival. I fell asleep in a field. There's all that bleepy-bloopy so-called 'music' going on... it sounds like a load of bobbins to me. Back to sleep, then. Roll on Sunday!

[gmoney]

in Ladbroke's today they would not take Rupert's £1 bet on 5:2 to England as it wasn't on their sheets,
I kicked up a stink demanding they phone head office which they did and they gave me 200/1 too bloody right!

[Dr Rock]

I've always felt it the done thing to grow old gracefully. Looking back perhaps the word 'prematurely' could be ascribed... oh well. I was strolling through Hampstead Heath last Wednesday when a glowing Melvyn Bragg jogged past me, his sweaty face a strange orange-tan colour that put me in mind of some antimacassars that mam once bought in Spain in a rare fit of fancy (I blamed the sangria). As Melvyn trotted off into the distance, I told myself it would be a dull old world if we all thought the same. Or equally valued our dignity. Darn it, post.

[wosl]

Ian McKellen still keen for the two of us to open a little fruit and veg stall next to the ruins of Top Withens on Haworth Moor.  Once people have struggled up there and had a good gander at the rubble he feels sure they'd jump at the chance to get their hands on some bletted damsons or a bag of gooseberry legs.

[wosl]

Up early, not with the lark, but before the tufted chough, I put on the wireless in readiness for Henry Kelly's Your Hundred Best Funeral Marches and treat myself to a spot of breakfast.  With Henry still gearing up in the wings, I catch the end of the news.  I'm chasing a few errant bran buds around my bowl when I hear the newsreader announce that a sinkhole has opened up at Bernardheptonstall and swallowed the optical glassworks.