Beetle and I, were going to go to Chicago – my birth city – because somebody invited me to go and be on a panel in Chicago, talking about film, and they were going to pay the passage and all the rest of it. We then discovered it was going to cost, like, £2000 pounds to insure ourselves for six days to go to Chicago, in case we had a heart attack and all the rest of it. So we... we're not... we're not going. It's a bit wet but it's also fairly prudent. Anyway, my general experience of life now is, don't make dates so far ahead that you think the day will never come because it just may be that it will. And when it does, you'll find you've agreed to go to Newcastle. So, on the whole, I now try to say no to people if I can, unless they will come to my house in which case I'm a soft... fairly soft touch as long as it's not in the morning because in the morning Casals and I do our stuff.

Do I dread death? I would like to say I dread my death more... less than I dread, certainly Beetle's death. I don't know what either of us will do without the other. I suspect that she will survive without me and I'm sure that I would, God forbid, survive without her. But it wouldn't be much of a life. Perhaps we'll both be killed in the same plane, car, stuffy room or anything else, I don't know. But depend upon it, it's very unlikely that what would be nice will happen. Something... as Cavafy said, you should not lie awake at night worrying about the terrible things that are going to happen. Almost certainly they will not happen. Something worse will happen.