A day out... Alan Bennet

Dennis Potter, past it after the Singing Detective . Only allowed on TV by Melvyn Bragg.

Alan Bennet; good in parts , but not really saying any thing much these days. I thought the History Boys was bloated nostalgia for a failed education system.

yes - there was a miserable and lacklustre air to DP's later work, especially Blackeyes and then the post-hummusly aired Karaoke and, er, what was that strange one set in the future with a Murdoch-style media-mogul running the world? But I loved Lipstick on Your Collar (not seen it since the original airing though, and not sure how it would hold up all these years later - unlike Pennies from Heaven which I watched not too long ago with great relish).

History Boys the film made me feel a bit soiled, like one of Bennett's supper-splattered raincoats. My wife won't have a word said against him, though.

But I felt an utter shit after posting that and reading Will's anecdote , that was a significant fail on my part. So Will and Plurabelle, please accept my apologies for lowering the tone.

"A day out" was wonderful; unfortunately , it 's not on Iplayer.

don't be daft, I don't think your opinion on AB's work in any way marrs the loveliness of the anecdotes above.

shame it's not on iplayer, but you can see a few mins worth of scenes here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCgF3l9pKQo
.

That's the best anecdote I've ever heard, really.

It beats mine by a country kilometer: about thee hundred years ago Rolf Harris winked at me (platonically I'll add) in a hotel in Bournemouth.

But I felt an utter shit after posting that and reading Will's anecdote , that was a significant fail on my part. So Will and Plurabelle, please accept my apologies for lowering the tone.

"A day out" was wonderful; unfortunately , it 's not on Iplayer.

Not at all!

I missed it assuming it would be on iplayer - damn and blast it.

That's the best anecdote I've ever heard, really.

It beats mine by a country kilometer: about thee hundred years ago Rolf Harris winked at me (platonically I'll add) in a hotel in Bournemouth.

I ve been for tea at Rolf Harris's many years ago.......cant remember much winking..

I will resist the very strong but childish urge to quote you with a minor alteration to that last word.

cunt remember much winking?

Fucking hell; I've just checked in the LRB archives and it's true! I remember that day so well; we used to deliver to AB a lot and my controller, knowing I was an admirer, used to try and save those jobs for me. So there I was, on my way, thinking, I've got to think of something interesting to say, something to ask that he won't be expecting. And I thought about Cyril Connolly. There's no chance, I reasoned, that any courier will ever have asked him about Cyril Connolly.
So I did and we chatted briefly about CC (Cyril Connolly, that is, not Chris Crash). What, with typical modesty, he doesn't mention in his diary is that he had a look on his bookshelves to see if he had a certain book about CC that he wanted, very generously, to give me; sadly it was at his house in Yorkshire.
The time he called me a "poor sod" was a previous occasion when it was pissing down and I stood on his doorstep dripping and a little tongue tied.
Anyway since the CC incident I have often joked about him relating this unexpected conversation in his diary; never, ever, imagining that he would. I know it's pathetic and gushing and risible but to have made it in to AB's diary is as satisfying an experience as I have ever had; admittedly there is not much competition.
Thanks Jonty; I thought I had read all of AB's published diaries but somehow it slipped by.

That, is amazingly cool. I'm vicariously thrilled for you Will.

Was this you then:

"29 May. A biker delivers some proofs from PFD, and as I’m signing for them, asks what’s my opinion of Cyril Connolly and why is it he’s less well thought of than, say, twenty years ago. Because he’s not long dead is the short answer and also, I suppose, because the literary scene has changed, with no one critic presiding in the way Connolly and (to a lesser extent) Raymond Mortimer did. [...]

I don’t quite spill all this out to the waiting courier, who is a graduate of UCL and shouldn’t have to be biking round London delivering letters this cold wet May afternoon."

From his diary, 2007.

I bet it was. I claim my £5.

Fucking hell; I've just checked in the LRB archives and it's true! I remember that day so well; we used to deliver to AB a lot and my controller, knowing I was an admirer, used to try and save those jobs for me. So there I was, on my way, thinking, I've got to think of something interesting to say, something to ask that he won't be expecting. And I thought about Cyril Connolly. There's no chance, I reasoned, that any courier will ever have asked him about Cyril Connolly.
So I did and we chatted briefly about CC (Cyril Connolly, that is, not Chris Crash). What, with typical modesty, he doesn't mention in his diary is that he had a look on his bookshelves to see if he had a certain book about CC that he wanted, very generously, to give me; sadly it was at his house in Yorkshire.
The time he called me a "poor sod" was a previous occasion when it was pissing down and I stood on his doorstep dripping and a little tongue tied.
Anyway since the CC incident I have often joked about him relating this unexpected conversation in his diary; never, ever, imagining that he would. I know it's pathetic and gushing and risible but to have made it in to AB's diary is as satisfying an experience as I have ever had; admittedly there is not much competition.
Thanks Jonty; I thought I had read all of AB's published diaries but somehow it slipped by.

This is the best thing I have ever read and makes me very happy. Fact.

When I was 8 years old the Queen Mother smiled at me at Kempton Park Races.

37 years later, she was dead.

Yeah I'm well jealous, I too read his diary in the hopes of having made an impression on him (used to see him everynow and then, and try and astound him with some chatter) but it obviously didn't work. Never delivered to him though. I got twittered by Stephen Fry, but that is a very dismal claim to fame in comparison.

cunt remember much winking?

I love you for that.

Jonty, it wasn't you in the lrb the other week was it?

Ah, rumbled.

Ha! It was great. i forwarded it to my courier acquaintances. Both of 'em.

Cheers, glad someone read it!

Ha! It was great. i forwarded it to my courier acquaintances. Both of 'em.

Yeh, and we sent it back with corrections. Or one of us did. Ok, I did.

I didn't really; it was a worthwhile read.

Miles away from the Sorting Office
Pat Stamp writes that because of the Royal Mail’s ‘modernisation programme’, some postmen’s walks now take ‘up to four and a half hours’ (Letters, 5 November). As an ex-bicycle courier, I sympathise with him, but would still suggest that postmen have a relatively easy life compared to many in the logistics industry.

Riding a bicycle round London for ten hours a day is grindingly difficult. Paid £2-£3 per job (with a 10 per cent bonus for working a full week if you’re lucky), income can be fickle, and a slow week spent standing in the rain is no fun at all. Though it varies dramatically, couriers cover distances averaging around 300 miles a week. Couriers are obliged to deliver whatever a client wants delivered as quickly as the client requires; if you can’t get from pick-up to destination within 40 minutes, you don’t get paid. Covering London from (roughly) Wapping to Knightsbridge and Camden to Elephant and Castle, you see a lot of the city, a lot of weather, and a great many post-rooms.

Bicycle couriers are generally taxed as self-employed subcontractors. Theoretically, couriers work for themselves, on a job by job basis, and are subsequently afforded no contractual protection. If you fall ill or get knocked off (a depressingly regular occurrence; studies have shown that cycle couriering is significantly more dangerous than most other trades), then you’re on your own. No job security, no sick pay, maybe a sympathetic word from your controllers but that’s about it. Though there have been attempts at unionisation, they seem doomed to fail in an industry that relies so much on a transient labour force.

The most a courier can hope for when injured is the assistance of the London Courier Emergency Fund, a grassroots organisation which pays out small amounts to riders injured on the job. The LCEF is funded entirely by couriers and their friends. Like whaling, the job generates a strong communal network, but this network is completely informal, structured around races, drinking and comradeship rather than institutional legal protection. Because of this, any attempt to overturn the state of the industry through direct action is doomed to failure: striking is met with swift dismissal, whole fleets are sacked and replaced overnight. Average rates of pay have remained much the same for the last ten years, and it is difficult to see how they could be increased, even merely in line with inflation.

I’m not unsympathetic to Roy Mayall et al, but can’t help rejoicing in postal strikes as sending more work the way of the courier. A guaranteed income (at least for the time being), sick pay (albeit restricted) and, most important, the right to strike are privileges denied to the thousands of London bicycle couriers who ensure that while postmen strike, letters still get delivered.

.

See Jonathan Miller coming back from picking up his fags and paper most morning.

Just sayin'

Was gonna write 'from the perspective of a bicycle courier the postman's lot seems relativley pedestrian.' But bottled it.

^I saw that on MT

damn, too chuffed with my own shit jokes.

When I was 8 years old the Queen Mother smiled at me at Kempton Park Races.

37 years later, she was dead.

The curse of Clive, eh? Remind me never to offend you, you svelte handsome bit of alright...

Am I doing this right?

Actually Clive, forget it (fatty). Strike me down in 37 years time if you wish. I've just done the maths.