Build up the tension until nearly the end then make something explode

Eddie hasn't been for a while.  I'm not sure where he is. Presumably he attended Mass today.  I haven't been able to tell him how much the children like to listen to Peter and the Wolf and the Nutcracker. I hope he is pleased that they actually like classical music, it is not a case of mummy making them listening to it. Today I am listening to the Inheritance Tracks of Judith Kerr,

I admit to Eddie that I'm not that worried ​about the possibility of fox hunting coming back. 'Well,' he replies, 'I doubt if the average fox cares much whether you get torn to shreds by a pack of dogs or not. But presumably the reason you think this is because you like to think of yourself as superior to a fox.' I change the subject  and ask what Eddie thought of last Saturday's edition of Doctor Who. 'No idea,' says Eddie. 'Haven't seen it. I've got better things to do with my time than watch television.' I describe the plot as best I can then hesitate. Would he be offended by some of the comments about religion in it? 'Why would I be?' I try and think.... 'Doctor Who says something about religion being designed to confuse the uninitiated.' Eddie shrugs. 'Religion does confuse the uninitiated. I can understand the uninitiated thinking it's designed to confuse them. It's the sort of thing they'd th...

Mum emails, describing her sorrow at seeing a baby thrush torn apart by rooks. I know she will be reached with empathy for the little thrush and its parents, who had to watch it torn apart in front of them. I tell this to Eddie, a vegetarian and member of the RSPCA for over sixty years, expecting him to react in the same way, but he stands there stony faced. 'In its defence,' says Eddie, 'the rook is a rook.' I tell him Mum is no mushyhead, she knows to expect this sort of thing. Her email goes on to remind me that this is nature red in tooth and claw.  She goes on to discuss where the quotation comes from (Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem In Memoriam) Eddie interrupts. You're an English graduate aren't you? Shouldn't you already know that? I change the subject rapidly. This isn't something anyone needs to talk about. 'There was a good radio play​ based on In Memoriam a few years ago.... well I say radio play, it was just David Bamber readin...

Eddie stands in kitchen as I prepare dinner, describing in detail the living conditions of the pig I am cooking and the most likely methods used to kill it.  To distract from this I ask him what he thinks of today's edition of The News Quiz (I couldn have just asked him what someone who stands around smoking in someone else's kitchen has the right to berate me but somehow whenever he is around, the thought of a time when people routinely smoked at work, in restaurants, on trains and buses and even while watching TV in hospital doesn't seem that distant.") He needs some updating on who is Prime Minister. He refers to the PM repeatedly as "he" and I have to tell him that the post is currently being filled by a woman. 'Oh she's back, is she?' he interrupts. 'Oh goodness... Not again. Not that I mind who is Prime Minister, it's not my job to have a preference, but those dreadful skits she used to do with the actors from  Yes Minister, and c...

Getting any kind of political comment out of Eddie is extraordinarily difficult. Tell him there is about to be an election and his only reaction is to groan loudly at the thought of how much bad television there will be as a result. (" Politicians are incredibly bad at being on television. It's very hard to educate, inform and entertain, but it's equally hard to keep talking for as long as they do without doing any of these things.") I ask him if he is living in the old people's home. He shakes his head. "No, I refuse to go into one. I don't want to be undressed by a nurse. Its thoroughly depressing when the only person who wants to see one naked has to be paid to do so.

After he'd returned I told Eddie that I was very proud of my children after they'd returned from a trip to the park, as they had seen a three-legged dog and waved hello to it and said hello. Eddie looked at me blankly for several seconds. Eventually he put his pipe in his mouth and said "Are you asking me to be impressed that your children saw a dog and reacted as if they'd seen a dog?" I became immediately ashamed and embarrassed.  I tried to change the subject, asking him how Mass had gone and if he had enjoyed it. He smoked his pipe for a while and said "that isn't really why I go, you know." I tell him that I sometimes enjoy going to church, despite being an atheist. He replied "well, I'm not an atheist and I don't go to church to enjoy it." He can occasionally be quite hard work.

It's Sunday morning, and I'm just washing up in the kitchen when, to my astonishment, the legendary screenwriter Edward Penrose wandered confusedly into my back garden. Sadly I had no herbal tea to offer him, though he seemed happy with earl grey. Eddie, as his friends know him, is probably best known for his work on Doctor Who, though he also contributed to Blake's Seven, The Survivors, Doomwatch and Doctor Finlay's Casebook. He also wrote the screenplays for the British films Satan Never Sleeps and Fear of Children. Before he left to attend Mass, he offered to share his thoughts on the current state of broadcasting. As Eddie is now 94 and has not watched television since an episode of Take Your Pick  he watched in hospital in 1978 ("I honestly don't believe television will ever come up with anything better than that episode of Take Your Pick.") his thoughts might not be very helpful