Keeping On Keeping On

''I seem to have banged on this year rather more than usual. I make no apology for that, nor am I nervous that it will it make a jot of difference. I shall still be thought to be kindly, cosy and essentially harmless. I am in the pigeon-hole marked ''no threat'' and did I stab Judi Dench with a pitchfork I should still be a teddy bear.''

Alan Bennett''s third collection of prose Keeping On Keeping ...