Near the front of the queue and just had our tickets scanned, so getting pretty excited. Seeing Ms Badu at last. No photos allowed inside, which is cool.

Oddly, that’s how I first saw The Godfather, early 80s, and in black and white, to boot. Nevertheless thought it was utterly brilliant. Still pinching myself that I got to interview Walter Murch last week.

Lolly Willowes! I need to read this. It’s one of two new novels that Graham Greene wrote enthusiastically about to his mother from Nottingham in 1926. The other was The Great Gatsby.

Also You & Yours, a thoroughly decent consumer affairs show. I’ve done a lot of BBC over the years. Y&Y was the only programme that paid me. I was, in a sense, promoting a book (a guide to eBay) & said no fee was needed. They insisted on giving me £50 as I’d had to do some research. It’ll be missed.

Who won?

When I was nine, in Cheshire, I had a friend whose dad was friends with Alan. First time I realised that being an author was a job you could have. Met AG 40 years later and told him that, in a way, he was responsible for my career.

Just paid £79.95 for mine (not had Covid, not eligible and travel a lot so not risking it). Probably worth shopping around if you do decide to pay.

Just watched this. Enormous fun. Thanks for the heads up.

I’m continuing A Personal Anthology but also thinking about a similar but different project around the novella. So if novellas (novellae?) are your thing, or if you even have strong thoughts about them, and if you have a favourite novella, then do let me know!

I like Giles' Rubber Soul more than his Sgt P or Revolver but, as with them, I'll never play it again. Too smooth & clean. All the albums up to Revolver are best heard in mono, which is how I got the LPs. Disc two of the new set is great tho'. And it's nice to have the two alt versions on the US RS.

Things the younger me, a massive fan of The Godfather I&II, would never have believed, that I'd be upfront in Broadway cinema, interviewing the great film editor Walter Murch, alongside my old friend Taghi Amirani, about their wonderful film 'Coup 53', which, sadly, becomes more relevant every day.

Abandoned it a third of the way in after a fellow RB devotee told me it only gets bleaker. Sometimes you’re better off not knowing…

Things the younger me, a massive fan of The Godfather I&II, would never have believed, that I'd be upfront in Broadway cinema, interviewing the great film editor Walter Murch, alongside my old friend Taghi Amirani, about their wonderful film 'Coup 53', which, sadly, becomes more relevant every day.

For National Poetry Day, two early poems by my late partner, Sue Dymoke. It's the only appearance of 'Monster Lessons'. There's also 'Kid' by a guy called Simon Armitage, who Sue did her first ever reading with. It became the title poem of his first Faber collection. Anyone know what became of him?

Worse than that, in 97Blair set up the Jenkins review that came up with a great set of proposals and then he ignored it. Had it been implemented, he’d have won in 01 but lost in 05 (as he deserved to, after Iraq), forcing a coalition.

Bonus tracks should only be released after a fifty year gap, the way Stevie Wonder just did (and it helps if, as with Stevie, at least half of them are killer material).