Wednesday 24th December 2014

My Christmas sermon is to be ‘How Chekhov made Mayonnaise’.

I’ve just been informed that Harry Rollo has said ‘Muriel Spark’ on Christmas Eve TV. Can we compare Larry Grayson’s reception of Arthur Marshall on ‘Larry Grayson’s Christmas Special’ (circa 1981): ‘Oh, Arthur, I’ve got you some custard creams,’ which was Twirly Godfrey’s favourite TV moment, apart from when the parrot head of the umbrella spoke to Mary Poppins (except that’s a film and not at Christmas).

On Saturday Rufus Pitman and Raj Zoroaster gave a lavish champagne reception in the course of which Rufus also appeared on TV with devastating effect. The other team had a score of nought for almost the whole programme – all because of Rufus knowing everything. ‘Catherine the Great’, he blasted well before Paxman had finished reading out the question. Rufus’s grasp of the Anhalt descent! So quick. I knew it too, having been at Anhalt only six months ago, but never would have flashed as Rufus did. He was whooping and shrieking throughout the broadcast. One of the other contestants on the enemy team he really can’t bear, so it was marvellous his triumph. The enemy appeared to have died on TV. Val would have been awfully good at this sort of thing – being a contestant, I mean, not dying on TV. Val, indeed, was launched on ‘Top of the Form.’

Otherwise the conversation was unusually lacking in frivolity and even confessional – age, death, addiction, Dolphin Square, The Royal Vauxhall Tavern etc. Lord Arrowby was charming and said he’d a huge bank of material of my forthcoming 4 hour piece to camera on Her Majesty. Heaven. I really love Lord Arrowby and he’s one of the few that dares to treat me as a normal person rather as Prince Philip is supposed to treat the Queen.

Then the next day I took my seat at C Garden and Tristan began. Anthony Mottram, ‘consultant’ of Prague and first met by me at Barrowborough in 1970 and with ever since apart from various estrangements, was present. Oh Tristan in this performance! Nina was beyond compare. We were riveted and deeply moved by the rare gift. The Tristan wasn’t perfect but Nina lifted everyone to a higher plane and one felt no querulous doubt. Completely enraptured, even though Anthony Mottram said at the end: ‘That’s me. The bright white part at the back.’ The stage was divided, you see, between the ‘light of day’ (or ‘reality’) and ‘night’, the crazy, intoxicating world of love and death inhabited by Tristan and Isolde. Fascinating. At the end, after five hours, I only wished for it to begin all over again.

And so, with Tristan, and a final intimate dinner at the Canada Water Cafe with the Multis, the pre-Christmas run reached a height beyond compare.

Then a greater height, if it can be imagined, when this afternoon my personal choice of Christmas music for this year, ‘The Shepherd’s Farewell’ by Berlioz, was given at King’s College as part of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. How did they know?