Lord Bonkers' Diary: Monday

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This time I am going to publish Lord Bonkers' diary one day at a time, just as the old boy writes it. It's Monday today, so let's start with...

Monday

This year’s Uppingham International Film Festival opens today, and I am busy in my role as Patron. We have a particularly fine programme this year; notably, a series of lectures on the Liberal revival of the early 1960s and showings of British Realist films of the period, under the title "It’s Grimond Up North". Beyond this, there is strong selection of moving pictures: Beith in Venice, Greg Mulholland Drive, For Huhne the Bell Tolls, The Colin Bulldog Breed, Braveheart with our own William Wallace, of course, some episodes of Mike Hancock’s Half Hour that were long believed lost, Night of Mark Hunter, Danny Alexander the Great, The Killing of Andrew George, Adrian Sanders of the River and many riches beside.

The only fly in this particularly fine ointment is what to do with Michael Moore. I knew him first as a well-scrubbed young fellow who was often to be seen carrying Elspeth Campbell’s shopping, and in due course he was elected to Parliament from a seat in the Scottish Borders. Something unfortunate then happened to him: he took to wearing a baseball cap, making films and, worse, telling all and sundry how wonderful those films are. I fear that he has not been invited. Incidentally, I met a fellow in the Bonkers’ Arms last night who swore that Moore is now the Liberal Democrats’ Shadow Foreign Secretary; but, as I pointed out to him, if this were the case, surely one would see his name in the papers more often?