Alan Bennett Diaries

09/05/96: Vanity.

Happy birthday Alan Bennett! Here he is in our office, looking cheerful even though we'd probably just asked him to sign 1000 books.

'Definition of a classic: a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have.' Happy 85th Birthday Alan Bennett!

08/05/97: The names Americans visit on their children never cease to amaze me. One of Diana Ross’s daughters labours under the name of Chudney.

02/05/12: Jeremy Hunt has the look of an estate agent waiting to show someone a property.

01/05/05: Manchester United.

01/05/08: Home [from hospital] and my first outing is to the local community centre to vote against the dreadful Boris.

30/04/07: I always think my style, such as it is, is a compound of all my deficiencies. But maybe that’s what style is anyway.

18/04/88: The Sun.

17/04/13: Thatcher's funeral.

16/04/14: Batrachia (bəˈtreɪkɪə); plural noun: amphibians, including frogs and toads, which have gills and a tail in their larval state.

14/04/97: Taking a position.

13/04/84: The Scouse Cabbie Incident.

12/04/13: Each day brings new revelations about those due to attend The Funeral [Thatcher’s]. One inevitable attendee, now of course unavailable, would have been Jimmy Savile.

08/04/13: An epitaph.

07/04/10: The open mouth of Chelsea's Frank Lampard, having scored a goal, is also the howl on the face of the damned man in Michelangelo's Last Judgement.

05/04/98: The South - it's summat to see.

01/04/16: In this morning's Guardian the name of the Duke of Edinburgh is put forward to spearhead the [Remain] campaign. It’s only in the middle of the afternoon that I remember the date.

29/03/13: Remembering Richard Griffiths.

29/03/98: The conductor on the GNER train to Leeds is now styled Customer Operations Leader and announces himself as such, though - and it’s to his credit - he stumbles several times when he has to broadcast this absurdity.