"…So I quickly retorted, "I doubt very much you can fit the whole thing in there, my dear. Even with the use of industrial lubricant." That shut her up. Hmm, I don’t think much to theses chargrilled patties do you? More grill and less char called for I fancy. What is this vogue for serving everything burnt to within an inch of its life? I blame the Americans. I don’t know why - I just invariably do.

That Spielberg fellow is in trouble again. It seems that his Dreamworks company is at the centre of a court action alleging that they stole the central idea for a film entitled ‘Small Soldiers’. It seems that a scriptwriter alleges that he approached the studio with an idea for a film in which GI Joe action figures come to life. The idea never went into development. Then a few years later Dreamworks released ‘Small Soldiers’ a film in which… Ah. You’re ahead of me already. The problem any studio faces these days is that there is no such thing as an original idea. No matter how wild the premise you can guarantee that somewhere somebody’s mother/brother/stepsister/aunt has written a screenplay that bears some similarities to it somewhere along the line. I faced such a dilemma when my film ‘Violence is a Way of Death’ was released back in 1973. The plot bore some uncanny resemblance to a 1967 paperback pulp thriller entitled ‘Yes, it’s a gun and no, I’m not pleased to see you’. The bloody writer sued me for copyright infringement. There wasn’t any evidence, of course. Apart from the fact that it turned out that I actually did own a copy of the book. Oh and his lawyers managed to dig out a series of notes detailing how the plot of the novel could be adapted into a screenplay. In my handwriting. As I say, totally trumped up charges. I only paid out to the bloodsucker to avoid the nasty mess being dragged through the newspapers.

I loathe musicals with a passion. I hate film musicals even more. So I was delighted to hear that Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s plans to turn two of his caterwaul extravaganzas into films have hit a brick wall. Despite having bought the movie rights to ‘Phantom of the Opera’ and ‘Cats’, Universal and Warner Brothers have both collectively decided not to take the films into development. Which means that if he’s to achieve his ambition of ever seeing them on screen then the millionaire composer is going to have to try and persuade them to sell the rights back to him. So as from tomorrow I’m announcing a campaign to try and get the studios to hold onto the rights for as long as possible. In fact, I’ll even pay them not to make the films. I can’t say fairer then that can I?"