Good riddance to 2024

00:00 11:37

Robert Bathurst has narrated this article for you to listen to.

January. When the assisted dying bill comes in, I’ll be first in the queue. Non-stop nosebleeds, Covid-esque symptoms, leg cramps, a cough resistant to antibiotics, and unremunerated press interviews for my Burton/Taylor book. In the old days I’d be in New York, running amok with publicity handmaidens, going on television and racking up bills in the Gramercy Park Hotel. Now everything is done from the back-bedroom here in Hastings, where I dwell in the slum district, my window overlooking immigrants doing their laundry.

February. First anniversary of my myocardial infarction, when I collapsed in Morrisons car park. A good place to try to drop dead, as there are people about and the girl in the pharmacy knew how to use the defibrillator. Air ambulance helicopter to hospital, the works. My rib smashed from the vigorous CPR. No time to recuperate, either, as I had the proofs of my book to sort out, ‘sensitivity awareness’ editors to combat, the usual nonsense. The trouble I had getting ‘booby-doohs’ into print, my designation for Sophia Loren’s big knockers.

Griff Rhys Jones invited me to lunch with his pals in the Golden Dragon, Gerrard Street. Everyone said they’d see me later at Gyles Brandreth’s party. This was unlikely as I hadn’t been invited to Gyles Brandreth’s party. First thing next morning, Gyles Brandreth was on the phone. He’d assumed it was a well-orchestrated practical joke: ‘You weren’t there because you hadn’t been invited.’ I thanked him for the clarification. Well, you have to laugh. He does a great deal for charity, and when a raffle prize was dinner with Gyles Brandreth, an old lady enquired: ‘If I win, can I go by myself twice?’ Or was that Nicholas Parsons? Same difference.