Vanity publishing of course, these being the notes of a non-contributor, a latterday Pooter (though clearly a less pleasant fellow) – ‘why should I not publish?’ Charles wrote – notes for each day of the year but covering more or less his allotted span.
The following words taken from the opening paragraphs of a few days illustrate the mechanics of his footling exercise.

 

10.3.49 Trivia.  It’s mostly trivia, isn’t it?
This was the day, or it must have been one day this week I think,

11.2.80 Born before WWII, survived the century, English, observer,

1.10.77 These memoirs are notes for myself about what it was that entertained me
on a given day (entertained broadly, it might be a news item or a walk in the park)

3.1.41 Now and again I will turn to the newspapers which my mother put aside. 
If events seemed to have particular interest she would, starting in the early thirties,
keep a page or two of the Daily Mail or The Times or a local or evening paper and
if the headlines provoke a reminiscence or seem to have had some relevance for
friend or family I might use an item on the brittle page as hook.

1.6.43 The longer the life, of course, the more friends and family one is likely to lose
during the course of it but I am thinking today that that is particularly true of
the friends one doesn’t know, the entertainers.

30.8.42 Or, alternatively, a scarce remembered incident can give immense pleasure
by the research it might demand.

9.12.06 Who cares what I think?

7.10.05 You don’t reach 70 – well, all right, 69 – without reading some pretty scary
headlines with the toast and marmalade but what has been remarkable today, last Friday
as I write, has been the most chilling I have seen.

24.1.78 A lot of fun can be had reading aloud, for the benefit of fellow partakers of
the toast and marmalade, newspaper articles which incense or amuse by virtue of
demonstrating, again, that there is no limit to our mendacity, credulity, bestiality,
rapacity, stupidity, so on.  Just a quick glance at the top of the page to check that it
isn’t April 1st and, ‘Listen to this…’

7.12.85 Sometimes – don’t you – you just shake your head and swap hands so that
significant other can read the lead story’s banner and give you reciprocal shake.

4.12.61 The sentiment which most excites the opinionated, to lather often, is any
expressed in opposition to their own.  Excites and thoroughly diverts; a day without a
little righteous indignation is supperless.

4.11.43 And most of us never tire of talking about ourselves.

 

I would dearly love to know what enthused, aggravated, appalled my grandparents; my grandchildren who may well have no such curiosity can, if they choose, get something of my measure amongst 350,000 words.
My family appears only peripherally here but has of course been central to everything.