There was huge rejoicing in
this house when we heard that Nigel Hawthorne had been awarded a knighthood in the New Year’s Honours List.
I am far from alone in our profession in believing that Nigel is the most brilliant actor of his time. Never putting a foot wrong, he excels at both comedy and tragedy, on the screen or on the stage. But he is such an innately modest man that he would blush at the very idea of anyone saying so. He could act anyone off the stage, through the wings and out into the street, but is far too generous a performer ever to think of doing so. I can’t wait to see his Lear, later this year, which I believe will be the definitive performance of this Mount Everest of theatrical roles. No one deserves this honour more that he. Bravo, Sir Nigel.
If you have read any of my previous diaries, you must have gathered by now that I loathe most modern technology, and computers in particular. I used to envy people whose fingers could fly across the keyboard like Horowitz, clicking away with that ‘mouse’ contraption and surfing the Net without even getting wet. But now, having realized that it would be easier for me to straighten cobwebs than to become computer-literate, I have given up all thoughts of even trying.
Besides which, they fill me with a creeping anxiety, with all their attendant bugs and viruses. I heard yesterday, with some alarm, that the federal government of America is printing an extra $50 billion, just in case there’s a run on the banks as the millennium approaches.
Obviously they feel that a significant number of people are going to withdraw their cash and stuff it under the mattress until the bug has been slain by some technological antibiotic. I hope that Mr Gates is not going to be one of them. It has dawned on me that the endless darkness at the end of the 20th century, predicted by old Nostradamus, may well turn out to be the worlds; computers all crashing in tandem. Perhaps this bug-mania will prove to be nothing more than scare mongering, or maybe it really will prove a universal catastrophe. Either way, I’m definitely stocking up on candles, bottled water and batteries, and I’m certainly not venturing into a life or onto an aeroplane at the turn of the year. Call me spineless, but ’be prepared’ has always been on of my mottoes.
The mobile phone menace continues unabated. Although it has been widely reported that their overuse could lead to brain tumours, that has done little or nothing to prevent the less thoughtful among us from inflicting their fatuous and uninteresting conversations upon everyone within earshot. Wandering through the British Airways departure lounge last week, a man momentarily ceased his mindless prattle to glance in my direction.
In a voice loud enough to summon the cattle home from across the Rive Dee, he announced into his telephone, ‘Guess ‘oo’s just walked in.’ Instantly half the heads in the lounge popped up. I hastily slid behind a copy of The Spectator . ‘Nah - I kid you not - and she don’t look too bad neither. Wearin’ a fur ‘at though.’ Several people looked over towards me with a hint of disapproval. I mouthed the word ‘fake’ a couple of times and retreated to the farthest end of the lounge, muttering oaths. A few days later I was lunching at Harry’s Bar, one of the few remaining restaurants that religiously forbids the use of these machines. Halfway through lunch, a bar or two of Beethoven’s Ninth twittered away, audible throughout the room. Mario, the peerless maitre d’, stalked between the tables, his eyes narrowed, his head swinging from side to side as if he were at Wimbledon. I can only describe his expression as like the Red Queen’s seconds before she screamed, ‘Off with his head!’ After a seemingly endless number of repetitions of the ‘Ode to Joy’, a young woman sheepishly dug deep into the Kelly bag and turned the brute off. Have these noisy horrors become yet another occupational hazard of dining out, or will it ever be feasible to ask people to check them in at the door, like Al Capone’s mob had to do with their violin cases?
My brother and I were reminiscing about our austere, post-war Christmases as we recently decked the halls and dressed my huge tree with glittering baubles. All that we had in those days were home-made paper-chains, some threadbare tinsel and a small tree, usually with alopecia. Like most children, we were given few presents.
Compared to today’s spoilt youth, with its long list of must-have expensive toys and gadgets, we might be considered to have been deprived, but I remember that we were always knicker-wettingly excited and hugely grateful for everything that was done for us. Today there’s just too much of everything - too much gaudiness, too much stress, too many presents and too many parties, often peppered with people you’ve been avoiding all year.
Having reached that post-Christmas moment when
it’s time to throw away the cards, I find I can never bring myself to chuck all of them.
I always have to trawl through the year’s catch, and keep half a dozen or so for sentimental reasons. This year one of these I had from Graham Payn, a true charmer of the old school, and the beloved partner of Noel Coward for almost 30 years. As 1999 is the centenary year of Coward’s birth, we’ll no doubt be haring a great deal about the ‘Master’ in the coming months. Among the numberless Coward anecdotes, a favorite of mine has always been the one about exercise. Towards the end of his life, when his health was failing, he was told by his doctors that he simply must try to take some physical exercise. ‘My idea of exercise’, he shot back, ‘is 40 Turkish cigarettes and a box of marrons glaces.’Z
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