The Oxford quadrangle yields to a room in Pimlico beneath which the passing traffic from Victoria Coach Station

The Oxford quadrangle yields to a room in Pimlico beneath which the passing traffic from Victoria Coach Station whines long into the night. From the transistor radio at my elbow, above the thump and crackle of a lugubrious blues instrumental, an equally lugubrious Liverpudlian voice is glumly intoning the following words: “Tonight, all you pop-kids, we have a new session from The Fall – Mark E Smith in fine venomous form, you’ll be charmed to know – plus some new tracks from Bicycles from Space, Smegma and The Chutney Butler. OutRage! has no objection to the other performers in the stage line-up, and believes the concert should have gone ahead without the two ‘murder-music’ singers.”. Scripted comedy is relatively expensive and difficult to launch: even with brilliant commissioners and access to outstanding talent, the strike-rate is usually pretty low.
It has becoming increasingly hard, therefore, for commercial broadcasters, even for commercially-funded public-sector broadcasters, to justify the opportunity-cost of the money and air-time involved. Comedy has been a central audience expectation of the BBC for decades, but our investment in and promotion of comedy is probably more important today than it’s ever been. Also jettisoned in the ruthless quest to cut kilos (110 in all) are the mats in the boot, the electric sunroof, cruise control, the average speed readout on the dashboard, the fog lights and the luggage nets in the boot.

And Jean Fran?s Deh?PN’s general manager, says that the categories work well for 95 per cent of his customers.If it takes a novel, untraditional approach to get people opening the door of a high-street wine merchant, so be it. As I was reminded recently when I visited Luvians, an independent of fantastic quality in St Andrews, a good off-licence gives a town a sense of seriousness and completeness.Unfortunately, the PN initiative comes just as Unwins seems to be admitting defeat in the battle for the UK wine market, and is making moves to put itself up for sale. A thorough check of the plane was undertaken by men in dark glasses and gun-shaped bulges. When the excitement was over, the pilot came over the radio: “We have a saying here that it’s better to be on the ground wanting to be in the air than in the air wanting to be on the ground.” He was right, of course, but it would have been even better to be inside the terminal.. Mossad must have had a field day interpreting my tired scrawlings – lists such as “excuses for forgetting to send postcards” and “presents – remember to pick up chocolates at Heathrow”.On a flight back from America recently, my plane was held up for quite some time because there were more passengers than boarding cards.

Each time I stretched my legs or went to the toilet, I arrived back to my bench to find that the area had been searched and any papers I had deposited in the rubbish bin had been taken away for scrutiny. A little dishevelled, possibly a bit smelly, I decided to spend my last night on an airport bench. Sleeping in airports, you always find yourself in a rather odd position, having to ensure a bit of your body touches every piece of your luggage, so that you are woken if someone attempts to steal your bag of dirty underwear and half a Swiss chocolate bar.Throughout the night I was watched by a succession of (not very) secret police. I had run out of money and was exhausted after a couple of nights sleeping on the beach. He was back before I had made my decision.At times I have also been the cause of security scares I once spent the night at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv. Another passenger agreed to his request, however, and we both sat there as he found the toilets, her with an eye on his baggage, me assiduously ignoring it, wondering whether I should tell security.

Recently I was waiting by my departure gate, Toblerone in hand, when a man asked me whether I could keep an eye on his luggage while he nipped to the loo.”I’m not sure that’s very appropriate in the current political climate,” I replied primly. However, even post 11 September, the “be aware” message hasn’t reached all parts of the globe. But for everyone else, whether they have purchased a cheap flight for 99p or a long-distance flight costing several hundred pounds, airports are equally uncomfortable for everyone. There is a kind of democratic discomfort in having to sit on the same type of bench, have your peace punctuated by the same announcements and buy your food from the same shops.Our James Bond fantasies also come alive at airports, where we all become security guards, alert for unattended packages. These triangular chocolate bars from Switzerland have for me become synonymous with airport travel. The appearance of mountains of Toblerone bars on sale at the Duty Free shop is as certain as the fact that whatever airport in the world you have arrived at, you will always be in the wrong terminal for your onward train, bus or flight.Airports are also strangely egalitarian. That is if you leave aside the first-class travellers in their executive lounges with their free muffins and internet access.