Busy week

My appearance on the Today programme on Saturday morning was cancelled when news broke of the tragic helicopter crash in Glasgow. My petty concerns look very small in the light of such events. However, the booking has been remade, and subject to another disaster I’m due to be on the Today Programme tomorrow (Tuesday) morning. Then in the evening I go to the actual Bad Sex Awards to find out if I’m this year’s winner. I think not, because my own nominated extract isn’t quite funny enough, and I think the ‘merriment’ promised on the party invitation (‘champagne and merriment’) revolves around the reading out of the extracts in a funny voice. Anyway, I’ll be there, supported by all three of my children, Teddy, Julia and Maria. I’m sure we’ll have fun, one way or another. My children are all grown up, by the way, Teddy’s 24, Julia’s 22 and Maria’s 20, and it’s their idea that they come to the party. To her fury Virginia’s away on a long-booked trip to Marseille, and misses both this and the premiere.

That follows on Thursday – the Royal Premiere of ‘Mandela’ – when I have to line up with the other film makers to shake the hands of Will and Kate. It’s all very brief, but it’ll be a powerful symbolic moment for the team who’ve made the film, a sense of: Here we are at last. It’s been a long journey.

Friday and Sunday bring more screenings and more appearances on platforms to answer questions. To be fair what’s asked of me is nothing compared to the ceaseless demands on Idris Elba, Naomie Harris and director Justin Chadwick. This is because very few journalists, let along members of the public, realise that films have to be written. I’m not sure where they think they come from. Perhaps they think the actors make them up as they go along.