Read Halfway To Hollywood: Diaries 1980-1988 (Volume Two) for Free Online Page B

Patisserie Valerie’s.
    The door I never heard open. But I was aware of the presence of the lustful valet even before he said ‘I have something for you, sir … ’. With virgin-like caution I extended my hand to his and he dropped two small bars of soap into it as if they were ripe grapes.

Sunday, March 30th
    No work – for the first time in many weeks. The weather back in London is crisp, with high white clouds and breaks of sunshine – and the city looks a lot less grey than Paris.
    William and I go for a lunch picnic in St James’s Park and walk up the traffic-free Mall. Gentle Sunday strolling in the heart of the city. We eat our lunch on the deckchairs, then improvise a quick game of cricket. Afterwards we drive on to the London Dungeon – William is doing the plague at school, so this can be called an educational visit.
    This evening Helen – who has bought a £150 dress for the occasion! – and I dine out at Leith’s with Denis and Inge [Denis’s wife], Terry G, Maggie, George H and Sean Connery – our latest casting coup for Time Bandits . Connery is as he seems on screen – big, physically powerful, humorous, relaxed and very attentive to women. He talks with the unaffected ease of a man who is used to having an audience. His main love is clearly golf, but he has some good and sensible suggestions to make on his part as King Agamemnon.

Thursday, April 3rd
    Arrive at JC’s by ten.
    Some progress, but nothing sweeps the gathering off its feet. JC reaches a peak of frustration. ‘Nine weeks of writing,’ he practically sobs in anguish, ‘and we haven’t got a film .’
    But we make lists and from the best elements - mainly ‘Kashmir’ – I suggest that we play six members of a family – a sort of Python saga, set in the Ripping Yarns period of 1900-1930. The idea of telling the story ofa family seems to appeal and quite suddenly unblocks the sticky cul-de-sac we appeared to have written ourselves into. It suits me, a Yarns film with all the team in it – something I’ve often been attracted to.
    So, quite unexpectedly, the day turns around. At the eleventh hour we have a style, a subject and a framework for the new film.
    Ride back with Eric, who becomes very angry when I tell him that John Cleese is doing something in the TG film. He feels this is a plot on Denis’s part to make TG’s into a new Python film. Eric seems to be able to take Ripping Yarns and Fawlty Towers , but Gilliam’s extra-Python work he has no tolerance for, feeling that it just copies Python and isn’t original.
    A half-hour phone call with a researcher from the Dick Cavett Show , who’s doing a pre-interview interview. He says he thought my remark about showbiz being ‘a branch of American patriotism’ was brilliant, but I can never remember saying it.

Friday, April 4th: Good Friday
    The sheer pleasure of having a morning to myself – even though I have to spend it reading the Time Bandits latest revised script – is incredibly healing to my creaking system. Clear the desk, write the diary, pull down the blinds against the strong sunlight, brew up strong coffee, and settle down to reading.
    To my relief, the Time Bandits , as of April 4th, is not in bad shape at all, and most of last week’s rapid rewrites, though in many cases the result of writer’s cowardice, do seem to improve the shape and pace of the story. So by the time I’ve completed a thorough read-through I’m feeling very positive.
    Up to T Gilliam’s to discuss with him. Find him in a house of illness. Amy puffy with mumps, Maggie, newly pregnant, looking very tired, and TG crumpled and dressing-gowned. His temperature returned to 101 last night and he was thrown into a sweating turmoil after a phone call from Denis O’B in Los Angeles. TG thinks he has ‘brain fever’.
    We talk through for four hours. And by the end I’m exhausted by the effort of keeping concentration and a sense of proportion and not succumbing to Gilliam’s periodic