Читать книгу The Lost Diaries - Craig Brown, Craig Brown - Страница 60

Dear Diary, It is February the 24th 1974 and I am seriously smitten. Martin Amis (or, as he styles himself, Martin: Amis) is everything I have ever wished for: moody, ironic, dishy, and, in his own characteristically brilliant words, ‘f—ing clever’.

He is, again in his own words, a ‘word-magician in velve’ (a reference to his beloved velvet jacket, or ‘jacky-jack’ as he sometimes calls it). He has admitted me into his magical circle of brilliant intellectuals like legendary écriviste Anthony Holden, the funny, flirtatious Clive James (whose TV criticism is an art form in itself) and that doyen of wicked wordplay, Robert Robinson. Sometimes Cyril Fletcher, the éminence grise of television’s fabled That’s Life, graces us with his presence, and, urging us all to ‘Pin back your lug ’oles,’ brings the table to its feet with one of his immortal ‘Odd Odes’.

Martin is working at the TLS, and sometimes sends me love letters he has written on TLS notepaper. ‘I love you Martin’ he once wrote. I remember mentioning that he must have left out a dash between the ‘you’ and the ‘Martin’, but he denied it. Is he in love with someone else?

JULIE KAVANAGH

I’m warming my slippers in front of the log fire when I turn to my wife. ‘There’s a funny sort of ringing in my ears,’ I complain.

‘It’s the telephone, Dukey,’ she explains.

She passes me the receiver. Someone is talking on the other end.

It’s the Home Secretary. Douglas Hurd is my godson, and still runs the occasional errand for me.

‘Oh, Dukey, how would you like to be in charge of the BBC?’ he asks.

‘BBC?’ I say. ‘…Remind me.’

‘Broadcasting. Radio, telly, that sort of hoodjamaflip.’

‘To be perfectly frank, Douglas,’ I say, ‘I’ve got no use for a telly. I mean, where would one put it?’

‘But you don’t have to buy a television, Dukey – you just have to be in charge of it.’

‘You’ve convinced me,’ I say, and go to sleep.

MARMADUKE HUSSEY