Good afternoon.
If the debate and rapid fire wit at our meeting is anything to go by, tonight's offering is a treat!
Faye, in a charming and really quite grown up polka-dot cocktail dress (she must be going out after the show) is especially excited about the Jaws actor Richard Kiel coming in. "They don't make proper Bond baddies anymore! He was the greatest. And then I saw him in another film and he bit someone in that, as well ! ".
You need to say it all very quickly with an infectious, twinkly smile in your voice to grasp the full flavour of her excitement. She thought the "bloke with diamonds in his face" was quite frightening (in Die Another Day) but he didn't bite anyone, as far as she could remember. And the slowly dying terrorist with a bullet in his head in The World Is Not Enough just burned peoples' hands and threatened to blow up Turkey. So Richard "Jaws" Kiel, she reckons, is the real deal. And we've got him, tonight, just for you.
Then there's the equally dramatic but frighteningly more real story about UCH - where three mysterious deaths are under investigation: "Something's up!" she exclaimed. "That'll be the death rate", I ventured.
Talking of attire, it will soon be easier to travel in comfort whatever you are wearing on the Underground as air-conditioning is coming in. Don your Russian fur-hat, and an Astrakhan coat over a fine Italian wool suit and still sit back in comfort as you waft between Amersham and Baker Street. That's if you can get a seat. There's the rub that annoyed our lovely leader-ette: she used to use the Metropolitan Line and says the downside of the upside of air-conditioning is fewer seats, or less seating: I put both in as a good example of when to use "fewer" and when to use "less". Feel free to keep it as an aide memoire.
Ernest Shackleton should have been given an aide memoire along the lines of "The Antarctic is very cold and includes an awful lot of water which, when it gets very cold, freezes". You will recall his ship Endeavour , despite it's best endeavours, didn't make it to the south pole because it got trapped in the freezing ice-water of the southern Oceans. For some bizarre reason his family now wish to re-enact this act of heroic failure. Kenneth Branagh made it look splendidly patriotic in the movie, but so did Michael Caine and his merry band make the debacle of Rookes Drift look like it had an "upside" in 'Zulu' - I remain sceptical but like you, dear viewer, am open to persuasion.
I've no doubt the pupils at Harrow's Sinai School took little persuasion to take part in a live link-up with the International Space Station. Suddenly GCSE physics / general science look interesting. What a chance! What an opportunity! How lucky they have an uncle at NASA! Nepotism is a cruel but accurate word, me thinks; but, perhaps, I am just jealous. I've always wanted to say "Ground control to.... " whoever, even Major Tom.
Is that it, I hear you ask in exhausted tones? No. There's Ken Dodd. Faye claims he has sold 100 million albums which may explain "Happiness".
Robin always makes us laugh, genuinely, whatever the weather.
See you at six.
Alastair and Katie.
