Unusual Wogan: The Best Of

It was a show that went out three nights a week...live.

Mr Wogan, you're on, you're on.

With a live audience,

and everyone who's anyone dropping in.

The great and the good, the bad and the ugly,

and they called it Wogan.

Ha, I never knew why.

So, if you're sitting comfortably,

I'll show you something I made earlier.

God knows what they'll make of us in 25 years' time.

So, there you are again,

and welcome to another crash course in Wogan-ology.

We have a real cast of colourful characters for you today,

from those at the top of their game,

to those who are...maybe just over the top.

They include The Three Tenors,

Pavarotti,

Carreras,

and Domingo.

Quentin Crisp,

Barbara Cartland

and Jackie Collins.

Well, let's begin with a rare interview

with one of the most powerful men on the planet,

Rupert Murdoch.

An Australian on a mission to shake up British broadcasting.

In 1989, he was transforming himself

from press baron to media mogul.

And he came on the show

just a few days after the launch of Sky Television.

But, I mean, is Britain a hard place for you to work?

Did you find it easy to reconcile an Australian temperament

with working here?

Oh, very easy.

I think that Australians tend to do well here.

Erm, I know, I have many friends who've come from Australia

-have done well here.

-Why do you think they do?

Well, I don't want to be rude about the English.

Well, go one, you've been rude all week about the English.

No, I think they come here

with greater determination, greater energy.

They come from the New World and they, they're not...

they don't have, perhaps, the respect they ought to have

for the rules of the old world

and it lets them break through.

We did things that people said couldn't be done

like having another popular newspaper,

people thought there was only room for one paper, the Daily Mirror.

We didn't listen to those, those people.

People say it's not possible to have more television.

We believe people would love more television.

You think you know what the British public want?

-Yes, I think so.

-What do you think you're offering people

that they would want to watch?

Choice, much more choice.

Films before they're on the other television channels,

greater amount of sport,

continuous news,

and a first-class entertainment channel on Sky.

We heard, today, that in the surveys taken on British cable systems,

er, already we're, in those 200,000 homes in Britain.

er, we're ahead of ITN and just a bit behind BBC One...

So there, look out.

-Well, statistics, you can prove anything with, of course.

-Of course.

My family in Ireland have been watching Sky Television free...

er, for at least a year

and they don't think much of it.

Well, it's getting a lot better. LAUGHTER

-Yeah.

-Why do they watch?

-Well, they don't really, they...

-LAUGHTER

But it's there for nothing, you see.

When you start trying to charge them for it,

I wonder if they will watch it.

We're not charging for it.

We don't, we'll never charge for that.

We charge some of the cable systems who carry us,

but the viewers will not. and we're very happy.

That's the whole point, we're giving people choice,

we're not saying they have to watch.

But you're giving them a choice, there is that argument,

we won't dwell on it for longer. When I go to America, and they say,

"You've got tremendous choice,

"you've got 30 programmes to look at."

And you turn them on and you've got a choice of 20 game shows...

..er, a Holy Roller,

erm, one of these terrible tabloid television people

exercising their prejudices all over you...

and a strip poker game.

And it's not, it's a choice, but it's a choice of nothing.

You're pretty clever to find strip poker on television,

-I've never seen...

-I saw the cables do some pretty racy stuff.

You want stay up a little late at night.

LAUGHTER I'm too square for that.

-A choice of nothing is...

-Oh, I don't agree with that, of course.

I think that we get the wrong view here because BBC and ITV go over

and bid for Dallas and Dynasty

and that sort of stuff, which is all right.

-Well, that's the best of the American market.

-Not at all.

The best is 60 Minutes, the best is Moonlighting,

which you hide on BBC Two,

or LA Law, which I think is on Channel 4.

We put, you put the best of American television

on the least popular channels here.

I'm interested you think LA Law is particularly good,

-I don't think it is...

-LAUGHTER

-Well, it's a matter of taste.

-Of course, that's what it comes

down to, but will it come down to your taste?

I mean, if one looks at the newspapers that you own here,

one can scarcely say that,

for the majority of them anyway,

that you have raised the standards of British journalism.

Oh, I absolutely defy that,

I think that's very wrong.

And you can't say that about, whatever your taste,

about the majority of them, because they're all very different.

You could certainly say it about

the Sun or the News of the World, couldn't you?

-I think...

-Do you read them often?

Every day, and I think we've improved them greatly.

-Are you proud of them?

-Yes, indeed.

Particularly The Sun.

-Are you really?

-Yes. LAUGHTER

-The front page of The Sun?

-Absolutely.

When you see that somebody's life has been stomped on

and their prospects ruined and their family dragged through the mire?

Well, you very seldom find that in The Sun.

You do find occasionally... LAUGHTER

No, no, you do find the big news covered brilliantly,

you find a lot of fun there.

Your big news is covered on, big news on page six.

No, it's not.

-The sensation is on page one.

-That's not true.

When there's big news, a budget,

I mean, you'll find it on page one, two, three, four, five.

Er, right through, everything gets pushed back for big news.

Erm, but we will investigate

and we don't believe that people who set themselves up

in positions of privilege or as public figures

or as public role models

and either make money from that or get power from that.

We believe that they should be looked at.

We're live in a democracy now and we want to judge...

Our readers and your viewers want to judge people

by what sort of character they have

just as much as what political party they're in.

You have to admit, there're ways of looking at people

and ways of looking at... We won't dwell on it...

-No, let's just take an example.

-..cos we'll disagree.

Well, let's take an example. Right away from here quite neutral.

Er, take Senator Hart, Gary Hart.

He had suffered a terrible invasion of privacy.

They followed him, found him with a girl,

it was published in very respectable newspapers,

er, but it was published.

And he was no longer able to stand as president.

He very may have well have been the President of the United States

and then leader of the Free World.

Er, and I think that newspaper was quite right

to look at the character of the people

who're setting themselves up as fit to lead the world.

Yes, I could perhaps go along with you

part of the way with that but...

I think, if you take some television personalities

who've suffered greatly at the hands of some of your papers,

I think...that's hard to justify.

I wouldn't deny there have been excesses, and, um...

-Well I'm glad.

-We'd be the first to look at that.

Will you stamp on that?

I do stamp on it, and we do look at it and think very hard about things.

Doesn't seem to have changed,

but I'd like to see you stamp a little harder.

No, we'll see.

He came, we saw, and he conquered.

Well, I need some music after that.

Here's one for a news man like Murdoch.

Stuffed as it is with references to world events.

Billy Joel with We Didn't Start The Fire.

AUDIENCE CHEERS

# Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray,

# South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio

# Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, Television

# North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe

# Rosenbergs, H-Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom

# Brando, The King And I, and The Catcher In The Rye

# Eisenhower, Vaccine, England's got a new queen

# Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye

# We didn't start the fire

# It was always burning since the world's been turning

# We didn't start the fire

# No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it

# Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev

# Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc

# Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron

# Dien Bien Phu Falls, Rock Around The Clock

# Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team

# Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland

# Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev

# Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez

# We didn't start the fire

# It was always burning since the world's been turning

# We didn't start the fire

# No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it

# Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac

# Sputnik, Zhou Enlai, Bridge On The River Kwai

# Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball

# Starkweather, Homicide, Children of Thalidomide

GUITAR SOLO

# Buddy Holly, Ben-Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia

# Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go

# U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy

# Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo

# We didn't start the fire

# It was always burning since the world's been turning

# We didn't start the fire

# No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it

# Hemingway, Eichmann, Stranger In A Strange Land

# Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion

# Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania

# Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson

# Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex

# JFK blown away, what else do I have to say?

# We didn't start the fire

# It was always burning since the world's been turning

# We didn't start the fire

# No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it

# Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again

# Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock

# Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline

# Ayatollahs in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan

# Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide

# Foreign debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz

# Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law

# Rock and Roller Cola wars, I can't take it any more

# We didn't start the fire

# It was always burning since the world's been turning

# We didn't start the fire

# But when we are gone

# It will still burn on and on and on and on and on... #

AUDIENCE CHEERS

Now, one of our great, original TV personalities.

Before Nigella, Gordon, Jamie, even Delia, there was

only one person in charge in the kitchen - Fanny Cradock.

Cross her and your goose was definitely cooked.

I'm sure, like me, you've missed the abrasive style of this lady,

here seen haranguing a leg of pork and a silent chef.

Now, you see, I can say with absolute certainty that what

I am going to get when I cut that...

I needn't massacre the entire joint.

And I am going to use my fingers.

This is the only way I can show this directly to you.

I am going to make absolutely certain.

Oh, yes, I see, very well. Well, tell us.

CRUNCHING

Crunch, crunch, crunch. Crackling, you see?

Let me throw you another piece, give you absolute confidence. Bingo.

And bingo.

And there it is. You can have those bits, too. Now go away.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Ladies and gentlemen, Fanny Cradock.

APPLAUSE

-Fanny, you are welcome.

-I'm very glad to be here. I love it.

It was... The first television show we ever did was in here.

-Really?

-Johnnie and I together.

Half an hour. Invited audience.

And we were so scared.

John was kicked in the small of the back to get us on.

He said, "Go on, John, you silly B, you're on."

-Yeah.

-And he lurched onto television.

-Yeah.

We used to have invited audiences.

These people come in without any invitation.

I haven't asked them.

-Yeah, but they are especially nice.

-Well, they are.

You will find them OK.

Fanny, you brought me just a little...

That is for the end of the programme, you gutsy so-and-so.

LAUGHTER

Fanny, am I expected to talk to you without eating here?

-Oh, all right, we'll go on eating and talking together.

-What have we got?

-Well...

-What is this?

-I know what a sweet tooth you've got.

-Yes, I do.

Well, I have invented

a way, an easy way, of making these

puffballs of soft fruit, all soft fruits in turn.

-Hm.

-And they keep in freezers for, oh, months on end.

And they can be eaten hot or cold.

And they are bad for the figure. They are outrageous for the figure!

-They couldn't be worse.

-Luckily, I don't...

-You know, I'm slim as a lamb.

-I know, you're so slim.

LAUGHTER

Can you see over the top of your tum still?

LAUGHTER

There is not much to see over the top of my tum.

LAUGHTER

-Now, this is raspberries out of our own garden.

-Yes.

-And this is something Greek called pita paste.

-Oh.

-Or pita pastry.

Is it difficult to make?

-No, it is very, very easy.

-Is it?

-It isn't finished yet.

-Isn't it?

Oh. Lovely, thank you. Thank you.

-Cos I've hardly had a thing since lunch.

-I know, starved.

Over the 20 years, you were the maitresse of cuisine, weren't you?

Well, we went abroad.

That marvellous style of teaching people how to cook.

-And in fact, the Queen Mother complimented you, didn't she?

-Yes.

-How did you know about that?

-Oh, I know plenty about you.

She said... Eh?

LAUGHTER

She said, "In your opinion..."

At the end of an interview, she said,

"In your opinion, has the standard of cooking improved in this country?"

And we both enthusiastically said, "Oh, enormously!"

And we died. Because she turned with that inimitable smile of hers

and said, "Yes, and in our opinion, you are responsible for it."

And we stood there like a couple of codfish and forgot to bow and curtsy.

Tell me, do think that the cooks are born rather than made?

No.

I think there is a feeling for food, a feeling for cookery.

Which...is an impetus.

I mean, what an awful lot of work.

If you hear that expression, you know perfectly well you're going

-to have a damn bad meal and a lazy cook.

-Hm.

-You see?

-Yeah.

-But you can make any woman cook.

-Can you?

-Oh, yes!

What about a fella? It is not just women's work, surely.

No, but I am more interested in women in cooking because...

it's the absolute hub of the home.

And that is a woman's too.

I think...

If you can't cook, you are a rotten wife.

-LAUGHTER SHEEPISHLY:

-So do I.

LAUGHTER

But just to be on the safe side, for when I was ill or in bed,

with anything else, I...

LAUGHTER

I taught John to cook so that he could look after me.

Now, you used to prepare quite elaborate dishes in your time.

-Women don't have time nowadays.

-Listen,

I've had enough of this "in your time."

I am not dead yet. There is plenty of life in me.

-I'm coming back to cook some more on television, so there.

-Yeah.

But I mean, women don't have time these days for elaborate

dishes and that, do they?

And if this isn't one of your devious little workarounds

to convenience food, I'll tell you straight out that there is

only one convenience in convenience food,

and that's the profit for the manufacturers.

It is a load of muck.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

INAUDIBLE SPEECH

Don't you start them without...

I certainly will, they are my own mates. Aren't you?

-AUDIENCE:

-Yes!

-Well, clear off then. Go on.

-LAUGHTER

-What about nouvelle cuisine, then?

ANNOYED: What about it?

LAUGHTER

-I'm sorry I mentioned it.

-Yeah. I should think you are.

When are we going to get off cooking and talk about my new book?

-I don't know, whenever you like.

-Let's do it now.

All right. What new book?

It's called... You've led into it, bless your heart.

It's called The Windsor Secret.

And I wrote it five years ago.

-And I couldn't publish it.

-Why not?

Because it is not nice to the Duchess of Windsor and I had to wait

until she was dead. And it is the only time in my life

I've ever waited for dead anybody's shoes.

Because you honestly don't care much about people's feelings, do you?

I mean, you've spoken out freely and forcefully in the past.

Such as?

LAUGHTER

Well...

I know you are great chum of Barbara Cartland,

-but sometimes you haven't been all that kind about...

-What, to Barbara?

-Hm.

-One of my best friends.

-Yeah.

Splendid woman!

A bit overdone, but then so am I.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Now, it's funny that Fanny should mention Barbara Cartland,

cos that's who is up next.

A vision in pink.

Here is Dame Barbara getting into a right old ding-dong with

fellow writer Jackie Collins.

The fellow watching from the side is Ed Asner,

from the old Lou Grant series.

But all he really does is what I did,

and what you should do -

sit back,

enjoy the fireworks.

You don't seem to be losing any energy,

you are onto your 14th novel.

That's right.

Extraordinary.

Where does it all come from?

Well, it comes from the idea

that old people must keep working.

I talked to Zsa Zsa Gabor's eighth husband the other day

and I said, "How is Zsa Zsa?" "Oh, wonderful, 68."

He said, "I'll tell you exactly -

"she gets up at five clock every morning," nice for him, I thought,

"and she swims for two hours

"and then she is go, go, go all day."

-Now, that is the answer - go, go, go all day.

-Keep going.

You have got to keep going.

Once you sit down, begin to think about yourself, well, then you die.

People die of boredom. Nobody ever died of old work.

Yes, I know, but if you are as young as Jackie Collins, say,

she doesn't have to do any rushing around. Or Ed Asner.

-Well, no, they are living their...

-When they get old, they can do it.

Don't you see, we waste our old people.

One of my great things is that we must use the brains,

-the experience...

-Oh, yes.

-..and the enormous expertise of the old people.

We don't, we just shut them up in homes.

Other countries have Granny and Grandpa there.

And this is what is so exciting about my film because Lord Grade,

you see, he was so clever.

He's 80, but he's got the vision and the go of a young boy of 25.

He's seen that to save this mess with the persiv...pervis...society -

can't say that word.

-Permissive.

-Permissive society.

-I don't blame you not saying that.

I know, it's awful. But it has been simply ghastly.

We've got to go back to the family,

and that's what he's having a family film,

and I mean the whole family - Granny, Grandpa, the children, everyone.

-Is this Hazard Of Hearts?

-Yes.

-A new miniseries.

No Cartland book has ever been made into a miniseries.

No, because I was too pure, you see, and they all wanted something dirty

and people rolling about naked on beds, and that isn't me, you see.

And so now at last, Lord Grade has realised, we've got

to go back to the family to save the world.

I mean, look at the mess it's in.

Look what this society has done.

Look at the rush. We've got AIDS, we've got... Everything's awful.

We've got children more worse treated than they've ever been in history,

and I read a lot of history.

And we've got to do something, all of us -

you and I and the whole lot - we've got to try and do something about it.

I was trying to persuade Jackie to write a cleaner book.

I want to know where Zsa Zsa goes every day.

If she's go, go, go, where does she go?

-She's looking for another husband?

-Two hours in a swimming pool...

Oh, I've got a wonderful story about that! Can I tell it very quickly?

-Certainly, yeah.

-Well, Eva Gabor,

who is her sister, her younger sister, told me this story.

She said, "You know, darling, Zsa Zsa and I,

"we're not great friends.

"But it's funny because sometimes people think I'm Zsa Zsa.

"And I swim in my pool every day naked.

"And I have a big Hungarian rear end," she said.

"So one day, I'm swimming up and down naked and I see these guys

"and they're waving, they're working on a building, and they say,

"'Hiya, Zsa Zsa.'"

Oh, no, they said, "'Hiya, Eva.' And I said, 'No, no, darling, Zsa Zsa.'"

THEY LAUGH No, but the point is, it is

a question of old people sitting down and just sitting and feeling ill.

You see, I've done an awful lot of work with old people.

You know, I had a Government enquiry once into the conditions

and housing of old people,

and I think we're so stupid to miss

so much of what they can give us still.

-Hear, hear - I agree.

-And apart from that, we've got

to do something about the whole country, you know we have.

We've got to get away from all this awful, terrible... It's evil, really.

-COLLINS:

-What?

The books that you write, quite frankly.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Have you ever thought of the effects it has on young people?

-Yes, they love it, every moment of it.

-I know...

-They write me letters...

-..but that's what's wrong!

"I was reading it under the covers and..."

Let me tell you, there's room for both of us.

There's room for your books, which I'm sure are terrific

and you have huge fans everywhere. And there's room for mine,

which are a little more racy and people enjoy reading.

Yes, I quite agree they enjoy it,

but don't you think it has helped the perverts?

Oh!

If there's a pervert out there watching me,

I didn't do it intentionally.

You have all this awful abuse of children.

All that comes from a permissive society.

Permissive society started in 1970,

and everybody said, "You're the Queen of Romance,

"we're all going to have romance," but they didn't.

The publishers were told to write like Barbara Cartland with pornography.

I went out to America, and there were all the - I was going to say

girls - middle-aged women all writing things that they knew nothing about.

Most of them hadn't been kissed.

This is really true, nobody has every come up to me and said,

"You must write like Barbara Cartland,

"but put in a bit of pornography."

No, no, cos you've done it on your own,

without any need of Barbara Cartland. There's no Barbara Cartland in it.

The point is... No, listen.

There's a question I've been meaning to ask you.

I have to ask this question

because a newspaper did a piece on Barbara once and a piece on me

and Barbara was given The Stud to read, the book The Stud to read,

and she said, "It was a horrible, disgusting book.

"I stayed up all night reading it."

I want to know what she was doing all night.

-No, I didn't say that at all. What I said was...

-You did, it's in print.

It's in print.

What I said was, I thought it was a horrible book because it was

so terribly improper.

And, you see, I worry terribly about the people who follow us.

You know people are influenced and you know that nobody really has

worked out what happens when those sort of things go into the brain.

-You know what you said earlier, you said...

-Wait a minute.

When things are picked up by the brain,

it's like an encyclopaedia, and you can't get rid of it.

It's rather like... People say, "The television, you can turn it off."

You can't, you've seen it.

They needn't go out and buy one of your books or mine,

but on the television,

it's all covered - you're on the television too.

They have... You've seen it

and you can't get away from it, it's in your mind.

Once you've seen something, it remains there.

You say, "I won't think about it..."

Barbara, you said something very interesting before.

And excuse me, Terry, I do know this is your show.

LAUGHTER

I'm always... I have to say, you mustn't really apologise for that,

cos I really do love to have a discussion going between guests.

What I wanted to say, Barbara said something to you...

-Terry...

-I'm not...

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

-Barbara said something...

-We'll have a conversation afterwards.

-OK, Barbara.

-Barbara said something very interesting earlier -

"All these naked people rolling round on beds, it's disgusting."

Well, I really don't think there's anything

disgusting about naked people rolling around on beds,

I thought that is what you are supposed to do when you're married.

-No, listen.

-How do you know?

-Listen, that isn't love.

Love is something quite different to what we have had.

We've had sex, sex, sex.

When the Romantic era came in, everybody said,

"Now we can have every sort of sex."

There's nothing about love in it at all.

It was just animal - if you like -

making...you know, intercourse.

-Have you read Hollywood Husbands?

-No, I wouldn't want to, thank you.

-Have you read Hollywood Wives?

-I've seen...

It's difficult to criticise when you haven't...

I have criticised on The Stud and I've read

the things on your books and the advertisements you put in America.

I put in America advertisements?

-Yes, you put Barbara Cartland with iron knickers.

-I...!

LAUGHTER

-You...

-That was very funny.

I'm innocent! I am an innocent party here.

A row over romance there, but there will be no arguing

over this next trio and their romantic credentials.

We have got three of the finest operatic talents

of all time for you.

In a moment, there is Luciano Pavarotti

followed by Placido Domingo.

But first, very early on in The Wogan Show,

here's Jose Carreras singing Tonight, from West Side Story.

ORCHESTRA STARTS TO PLAY

# Tonight, tonight

# Won't be just any night

# Tonight there will be no

# Morning star

# Tonight, tonight

# I'll see my love tonight

# And for us stars will stop where they are

# Tonight The minutes seem like hours

# The hours go so slowly

# And still the sky is light

# Oh, moon, grow bright

# And make this endless day endless night

# Tonight

# Today

# The minutes seemed like hours

# The hours go so slowly

# And still the sky is light

# Oh, moon, grow bright

# And make this endless day endless night

# Tonight! #

APPLAUSE

Fantastic stuff. Now, Pavarotti never did sing on the show.

He always needed to rest his voice.

But that didn't stop him delighting us with his presence

and with a few nice insights into his life.

He did, however, insist on a table to cover his generous proportions

and a chair that was higher than mine so that I could look up to him.

Where did that... What they call a voice from heaven,

where did that come from?

From heaven.

No wonder they call it that. You have to guard your voice, don't you?

-Carefully.

-Constantly.

I think I am

a prisoner of my voice.

And, uh...

I am treating my voice like

a very nice, gentle and sophisticated

and spoiled lady.

And sometimes... HE LAUGHS

But she repays me very well.

-Many of them don't.

-LAUGHTER

Sometimes, they say,

"You, singer, are temperamental.

"You, singer, are here or there."

They do not understand that what we do,

we do most of the time for the voice.

Your mother. Your mother is your greatest fan, perhaps.

Your father too.

But your mother only saw you in person last year, didn't she?

I mean, she has always stayed away from your concerts.

She had the courage... My mother was born with a heart problem

and...

They always try to keep her away from my concerts, myself too.

I try to keep her away.

And finally, last year, she said,

"I don't care, I'm 75.

"If I die, I will die more happy

"because I have heard my son in person."

And she came, and she feel OK. She did feel very well.

-A little, you know...

-Emotional.

-Emotional, very much.

And there was more emotion in her, and I say, "What am I doing now?

"Let me not do a big effect here or I will kill my mother."

LAUGHTER

-So I don't think...

-That's awful. That's awful.

-Don't sing your best cos you might kill your mother.

-Yes.

I don't think it was my best concert, that.

That was a concert made for the heart of my mother.

-A very nervous concert, yeah.

-Yeah.

Do you still enjoy singing? Do you still get pleasure from it?

If I don't enjoy it immensely, I will stop.

I really enjoy it very much.

Like I say, I like the contact with the people

and I like the contact with my audience.

And more than anything, I thank God because he gave me

the opportunity to work

in music with something...

it doesn't need any translation between country.

We went to Russia, I remember, three years ago,

and we have an interpreter to do everything,

except when we begin to do music.

And that was the biggest message.

They opened, all of the people, for us. And that was

something that politics probably cannot do and music did very easy.

Do you sing in the bath?

I don't, no.

I don't.

Unless I go there to make the shower come...

Humid. You know humidif...

And then I try to sing to see if it's better.

But I don't sing in the bath.

I'm not a fanatic of singing.

Why?

No, I just wondered.

Anybody who wants to get a free concert could

-hang around outside your bedroom.

-No.

Music is not your only passion, though, is it?

I mean, we have been talking about music.

You have other passions, haven't you?

If you are talking of passion, and I give to this word the right meaning,

I think music is the only one.

But I have a hobby. And the hobby is to paint.

And a hobby is to play tennis. And a hobby is going on the horse.

The other passion that I have is life.

I like life very much, and you can see, I mean...

If you know me very well, you can see that I like life very much.

And you still follow football?

-Cos you were nearly a footballer, weren't you?

-Well...

I was a football player until 19.

I was almost good.

I think I was ten pounds too much to be good, really. Just that too much.

And then when I begin to sing, I put a scarf around my neck,

I give away my shoes to a kid - he was much better than me.

And he became a football player, in fact.

And...

I stopped to make gymnastics, to make everything.

I went on eating the same way than before and I gained constantly,

little by little, a lot.

And that is the reason why I'm like that.

But before, I was much smaller than you. Yes, much...

Yes, much smaller than you.

Much smaller. I was a real athlete.

-I am a bit athletic myself, you know.

-I mean football.

-You have to jump high and...

-Keep fit, yes.

For 90 minutes, you have really to run.

I think it's one of the most intelligent sports.

But I mean, you're a picture of ruddy good health.

-I wouldn't like to see you lose any weight.

-Me too. I would like.

-Would you?

-Yeah.

-Would your voice suffer if you lost weight?

-I don't think so.

-No, I don't think so.

-So, what do you have to give up to lose weight?

-Food.

-Food.

LAUGHTER

As you say in Italy, food. Luciano Pavarotti.

APPLAUSE

And now, some magic from a marvellous Placido Domingo,

who treated us to a stirring performance of the song Granada.

# Granada

# Tierra sonada por mi

# Mi cantar se vuelve gitano

# Cuando es para ti

# Mi cantar

# Hecho de fantasia

# Mi cantar

# Flor de melancolia

# Que yo te vengo

# A dar

# Granada

# Tierra ensangrentada

# En tardes de toros

# Mujer que conserva el embrujo

# De los ojos moros

# De sueno rebelde

# Y gitana cubierta

# De flores

# Y beso tu boca

# De grana jugosa manzana

# Que me habla de amores

# Granada

# Manola cantada

# En coplas preciosas

# No tengo otra cosa que darte

# Que un ramo de rosas

# De rosas de suave fragancia

# Que le dieran marco

# A la Virgen Morena

# Granada

# Tu tierra esta llena

# De lindas mujeres

# De sangre y de sol

# Granada

# Tu tierra esta llena

# De lindas mujeres

# De sangre y de

# Sol! #

APPLAUSE

And finally, one of the most well-received guests we ever had

on The Wogan Show - writer, raconteur

and all-round delight - Quentin Crisp, self-styled,

naked civil servant who came on after

an appearance by the cricketer Viv Richards,

which explains the sporting angle that we start off with.

Did you ever play cricket? Are you...are you a sporting man?

I wouldn't describe myself as a sporting man,

but I was forced to play cricket at school.

-Did you enjoy it?

-I hated every moment of it.

What about America, though?

I mean, do you play any sports now that you live in America?

American football, anything like that?

Oh, no, now I'm happily beyond the point where anyone can expect

any activity of me whatsoever.

LAUGHTER

You have... You've lived in America for the last six years.

How do we look from over there?

What's your perspective on Britain from over there?

Well, it looks nice...from over there.

But then... That's an odd thing to say.

But it is very different. America is very different.

England is quieter,

cosier, more restful.

America is more vigorous and more ambitious.

But also, of course, Americans are very, very friendly.

You see, in England, you have to make friends.

It's very tiring. LAUGHTER

And when you've made them, you get stuck with them.

Which is more tiring.

But in America, you never get stuck with anybody.

LAUGHTER

Three weeks is a meaningful relationship.

That's what you like, you don't like long-lasting relationships.

No, they're worrying.

You were...

Remembering The Naked Civil Servant, your book, you were given

a rough time over here when you lived here in your 20s and your 30s.

Do you think you'd have had a happier time now

if you were growing up here now, if you were in your 20s now?

-Would it be different?

-Oh, yes, my life would be much easier now.

-Happier?

-Oh, yes.

-Why do you think that?

-Well, because anything goes. You see,

happiness... Life, the world has fallen into the hands of the young.

See, when I...

There were no teenagers when I was young.

You were a dear little thing till you were about ten years old

and then there was an embarrassed silence

until you came out the other end.

For one thing, you had no money.

There could never have been a teenage market.

Because no teenagers had any money to spend.

Do you think people would have been more tolerant of the way you

-behave and the way you dress?

-Oh, yes. Now, what... I mean,

in New Y... I live on the Lower East Side.

There is nothing you can do or wear or say that would make you

seem remarkable. There are people with rocking horse hairdos.

The ends of their hair are gold

and the middle of their hair is green and the roots are black.

And nobody is taking the faintest notice.

That doesn't please them, does it?

Well... I don't know whether it pleases them. I worry...

The punk movement began in England,

but the sad thing is,

the punk movement is a hostile movement.

The punk people are not happy. And that worries me.

Because if you can do anything, if you can say anything, if you can wear

anything, surely your attitude toward the world should be benign, friendly.

Yes, but surely if you're allowed to do anything you like,

then there's no incentive to do anything.

There is if you make chains for yourself.

When the chains are not put on you by others,

you have to exercise a certain amount of discipline.

So you have to try and invent a way of going on, a way of living,

a way of speaking, dressing that represents you.

And that is your discipline.

And that tells you where to go, what to do, how to live.

How would you describe yourself?

Do you think of yourself...do you see yourself...? Do you feel happy?

Oh, yes, I am happy now.

On my passport, it says that I'm a writer,

but really I'm a cross between an evangelist and a clown.

LAUGHTER

Where does the evangelism come in?

As you just said, people should do whatever they want to do.

That's right. I only understand happiness.

And all I can do is tell the people of America how to be happy.

And there, we end.

We hope you'll agree, it was a rather...agreeable selection.

There's plenty more where they came from, too.

So make sure you join me again next time.

Come on, I don't want to be talking to myself.