As I talk about Isaacson and Bennet and Temple and Gary and Virgil, they come alive for me again as... as I hope they come alive for... for readers. I’m also glad to be able to talk about them while I still have memory and mind, roughly, intact. Alas, too many of my contemporaries have... have got Alzheimer’s or Lewy body disease and I don’t know what the future holds for me. And I feel it’s important that I... that I talk and write while I’m able to. This, alas, didn’t happen with my cousin, Carmel, who... Aubrey’s sister, she’d had a very full and fascinating life as an actress and as many other things, and I know that when she became ill she wanted to get a word processor and to write a memoir. But she didn’t and dementia overtook her. On the other hand, I’m very glad that my... that Aubrey’s widow, Suzie, at the age of 88 was able to write a quite wonderful memoir which is not only popular but really important. Because of... because she was herself privy, you know, to the centre of Israeli politics and everything which went on in the Middle East for... for 50 years.

I, but I... I like to speak and I’m glad I can speak now of... of my… I don’t know whether to call them patients, subjects, characters, friends, collaborators, sort of all of these. There was a... a film, I think it was called Moulin Rouge, of Toulouse-Lautrec and José Ferrer, the actor, impersonated or acted Toulouse-Lautrec. He... I think he walked around on his knees, it was rather an amazing orthopaedic achievement. But why I mention it is that when, after a fall, a catastrophic fall down a flight of stairs, you see Toulouse-Lautrec dying, as he is dying La Goulue and all sorts of his characters from the Moulin Rouge... come to him and dance in front of him. I find myself emotionally affected by this and... and I imagine and... bid him farewell and I, sort of, imagine that some of my own characters may… I’m not usually emotional, I’m very surprised and somewhat embarrassed that... that my voice becomes unsteady and tears enter my eyes, but there you are.