AUDIO: Alan Bennett: Diary for 2021

[@mavcek]

My yearly dose of delight. I can never tire of Alan Bennett's mellifluous Yorkshire tones.

[@clairegardner6211]

This always feels like a late Christmas gift. I look forward to hearing Mr Bennett’s stories, musings and opinions every year and I play them regularly. Thank you for continuing to do this every year. It really is a joy!

[@KnappKnits]

I just discovered that I share a birthday with Mr Bennett, though I wasn't born until 1960. I feel a little thrill of association with such a notable personage. His intellect cows me. His acerbic sense of humour is scarifying and his writing always evokes a painful empathy. Such a remarkable, English talent.

[@profesancho5175]

"the absence of chuntering"! How I love listening to Alan Bennett!!

[@adscri]

As usual, Alan Bennett has led me elsewhere, this time to David Olusoga’s TV series ‘A House through Time’. More than well-worth the detour.

[@mpiovaz]

Bennett bliss! This is the much longed for new year's treat.

[@tulsaturner7893]

I can never wait to hear new broadcasts by my favourite author. Thank you so much x

[@daisyt1000]

Love listening to these diaries by Alan Bennett, I’m from Armley where he’s from and know all my the places he refers to.

[@popshaines5492]

Excellent value as usual with A.B. The most amusing section is where he praises the 'triumph of research' for David Olusugos' TV prog about WW2 Leeds, including the 'blitz'. Then points out that the 'blitz' in Leeds never happened. Rather than praising the 'triumph of research', taking on D.O's unlikely imaginings might be even more amusing? Thomas Sowell's wisdom needed here.

[@4-dman464]

0:20 "Kitted out". This WWII-period phrasing has communal connotations distributed equally, not just bureaucratic or controlling. And that's what makes it archaic - - there are less communal bureaucratic terms now that render all conscripts of 'Dad's Army' without any character or individuality. 3:40 Echoes of this archaic community spirit behind "kitted out," now lost, in remembrance of conscripts issued with "official civilian clothes." Alan Bennett keeps the value of what we have lost within living memory, so theoretically anyway we could revive that decency in society, if only we could oppose the corporate monolith. And at 9:58, where fighting between right & wrong only has meaning if society first demonstrates what right means. As opposed to the Right. And everywhere for 38 minutes, Bennett's capacity for reflection, literate and philosophical, something else rendered archaic by today's unthinking dictats and unthinking conformism and unthinking consumerism and unthinking media and unthinking t-y-p-i-n-g. Long live Alan Bennett, for all our sakes.

[@michaelstone4978]

Fantastic. An annual delight. Long may it continue.

[@topherUSA]

I wait for this every year. Anxiously. I used to haunt the newspaper stand for a "real" copy of the LRB. The last few years I content myself with the electronic file. I just watched the Leeds episodes of the enjoyable A House Through Time...that exists still on KZbin.

[@jennichannon6970]

Wonderful man so full of common sense x

[@mickmathieson8266]

Brillliant!

[@lynriddett767]

An annual delight - thank you! The Philip Roth commentary is hilarious, likewise his LRB comments! Happy New Year to one and all...

[@DrMillerfan]

Fantastic!!

[@nickwyatt9498]

"It was as if the writing were like mustard and cress...just beginning to sprout". Only AB could have written that. Thank you for posting this, a lovely start to 2022 for me.

[@peterhart8275]

Brilliant as usual. Thank you.

[@jennichannon6970]

Wonderful man x

[@philipedwards439]

Priceless.

[@rogersanders6219]

Glorious as always

[@eshaibraheem4218]

The Gripes of Roth. Like it.

[@billbligh4547]

Bookending the Queen and far more comforting bringing the year to a close.

[@adscri]

Jollop - used at home by my parents to refer to any liquid medicine of dubious quality. Wonder if anybody anywhere still uses the term.

[@Mike8981]

I do try to see the world through the eyes of Bennett - at least it's very interested to try!

[@kathleen5237]

I used to hear the word 'jollop' too. Usually said in a derogatory way - messy liquid

[@kennnorris2055]

Absolutely fabby

[@WhippetOut]

My hero.

[@QXZJX]

Thanks Alan❤

[@benji928]

Coogan bought me here

[@Mistydazzle]

❤️

[@crispin.]

Would be lovely if we had this for 2022

[@londonreviewofbooks]

Alan's diary for this year is out now on our website: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n01/alan-bennett/diary You'll be able to listen to him reading it here on 27th Dec

[@CA-ee1et]

Ooh mother. Turns out I'm a latent homosexual, and I don't want to take you to Wimpy bars any more; not now you've a fancy man to do it, and I can sit here brooding; stewing in me own resentment. Mam - I'm off dogging up Roundhay Park. And don't talk to me about sophistication; I've been to Leeds.

[@stronginfo6657]

Can you make a video on the meditation book "Quagmire to Awakening" scientific approach of buddha towards higher intelligence I would really appreciate your effort if you do.

[@nononame113]

hair

[@redsed1565]

??

[@nononame113]

@@redsed1565 A typo in the blurb. Normally I wouldn't mention it because it's trivial, but this is the London Review of Books.

[@redsed1565]

@@nononame113 what did u mean to say?

[@nononame113]

@@redsed1565 LRB's blurb on this video says 'considers selling his har on eBay'.

[@redsed1565]

@@nononame113 oh how sick!! They should just cremate the ol fella!

[@splinterbyrd]

I'm not saying his work is without merit - I loved his plays about spies Burgess and Blunt - but his _faux naïf_ delivery when reading or speaking is so phony it's painful. Despite clearly thinking of himself as the literature's leading portrayer of the elderly, all he ever wants to do do is make old people look silly. He never portrays their strengths and their stoicism. This implies that underneath the cozy exterior, he's a bit of a b***ard. Bennett patently knows nothing about women of any age, and poor Thora Hird and other women characters look to be merely a projection himself in drag. Given that one of his recent monologues is about a woman sexually attracted by her 15yo son, this is all the more alarming.

[@cathschofield7488]

You couldn’t be more wrong

[@redsed1565]

whats this boring story about?

[@lynriddett767]

Perhaps you didn't listen...

[@redsed1565]

@@lynriddett767 sorry I fell asleep! Is it about a depressing book? Sounds like fun, NOT!

[@JP-dv7rf]

@@redsed1565 You wouldn't understand, don't worry yourself about it.

[@redsed1565]

@@JP-dv7rf as i guessed, more useless cyber junk!

[@ethanhoward389]

@@redsed1565 correct, we clearly don't understand the need to listen to a man with marbles in his mouth talk about literally fucking northing for an hour, this is a bad place on the internet red, we need to retreat and regroup somewhere that makes sense