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Home Farm, Friday
Home at last after all-day meeting with veg packing co, to darling little Jenny and a reviving bottle of ‘67 Palmer. Gliding along the by-pass in the S-Class, I foolishly stop to help Tony, stranded with yet another breakdown of that useless car he bought with Dame Trout’s tax-dodge handout. An MG in trouble is always good for a gloat.

He can’t see that a whingey middle-aged organic vegetable farmer is as invisible to pretty girls in his clapped-out sports car as on his clapped-out tractor. My problem, on the other hand, quite the opposite, with both my ‘Irisch Kind’ and darling Jenny, each in their own way still irresistible to me and constantly demanding my attention, not to mention the luscious globes of succulent young Brenda Tucker, who bats her eyelids at me whenever I see her in the Bull. Amazing that a pair of radio-faced troglodytes like Mike and Betty could have produced something like that.

Tony bent my ear with a lot of ‘Guardian’ nonsense about my Hungarian venture. He can’t bear the thought of competition for his saintly little enterprise. His disdain for the marketplace makes me vomit, and his daughter just as bad: force-feeding her revolting cheese to anyone who walks into their grotty little over-priced shop, and stamping her foot when they spit it out in disgust.

To please Jenny, make telephone call to a sloshed-sounding Lilian in Channel Islands. Now she’s had bags of fat suctioned out under the knife (God knows what other unspeakable cosmetic treatment she spent Dame Trout’s 5K on) she seems to have some other toy-boy in her grasp. I offer her a ransom price for the ‘ransom strip’ that Crawford is after her for. She thinks he has other designs on her as well, poor deluded old harridan, which is perhaps why she calls me later to say she’ll stick with him on her precious ‘ransom strip’.

Of course, even the revised scheme will need delicate steering through the mediocre grey-suited subservient toads on the Planning Committee - more delicate than the last occasion when I was accused of being drunk as I addressed the Council meeting. Some w anchor called ‘Lennie’ (that just has to be a false name, probably someone on the editorial staff) wrote to the ‘Echo’ saying how disgraceful it was, and typical of my ‘arrogance’, usual b! s. They’re so f! ing stupid in Borchester they’ve only got to read something in the ‘Echo’ and they think it’s true. Dreadful flatulent Crawford thinks I will help him build his dream but the idea of his vulgar houses full of bought furniture and Ford Mondeos spawning over our beautiful English parkland fills me with absolute horror.

This leads me to melancholy thoughts generally - how long do I have left? How long can I go on, always dreading the unveiling phone-call or uninvited appearance at Home Farm of the ‘Irisch Kind’ which some sixth sense tells me will come a little after 7 one Friday evening - whilst Jenny simpers to the neighbours about my fidelity and good works. At least Kate has put off her visit to Blighty from Bongo-Bongo land for the time being, and that utter sh! t and transatlantic fraud Simon has been mercifully silent for a long time.

How I wish I could slip away and disappear into the pure clear airwaves without once looking back. The story is bound to be out before the Golden Jubilee but I can’t let the Editor down by quitting before then.