On my birthday, Kenneth William's heart was "like lead". On my mother's birthday, he ponders "Surely death would be beautiful?" Just what is it that you had against my family, Kenneth?

The Kenneth Williams Diaries, published in 1994, revealed a side to Willo the Wisp that few people imagined existed. Who would have imagined that the star of hundreds of Julian and Sandy scripts was, in fact, a frustrated homosexual with relentless anal pains, and an unfettered wind problem?

Reading the book is a depressing trawl of misanthropy, bitching and meaningless namedropping, providing no more insight into Kenneth than the sentence "he was a bit of a cunt".

So, here are the best bits, along with some bits that I made up myself to spice it up a bit. In this way, perhaps we may think of Kenneth as something other than a body of pitiable malevolence.

22nd February 1926
I was born today. What a tiresome & wearying experience it was. When I first opened my eyes, the crushing weight of my life to come was visited up me. I took my first breath, of foetid, poisonous air, & I began to cry.

Wednesday, 27 February 1952
I am 26 years old and I still haven't had any fabulous reviews, appeared in any Carry On films, or died. What is wrong with this world, where one's destiny is kept from one? How can this be fair? It is all a load of shit. I like men.

Thursday, 18 December 1952
Wish I'd never seen Peter Pan. Hate it bitterly.

Monday, 9 November 1953
Still haven't quite got over seeing Peter Pan. If anything, my hatred has deepened over the last year. If I were to sacrifice myself to one end, it would be to destroy Peter Pan.

Saturday, 22 December 1956
Sandy Wilson party at 9'ish. Liz Welch was there. She is superb.

Sunday, 23 December 1957
I was the worse for drink last night - I could hardly believe my eyes to read the diary this morning. Liz Welch is a vapid whore; she talks of nothing but her hair and when she walks, a mélange of foreign semen is teased out of her by the jostling motion of her over-ample thighs. Superb, my accursed arse.

1957 Memoranda
I am beginning to get famous now, which is about bloody time. However, I still hate everyone and everything, and am constantly racked with pain throughout my body, and a cancerous malevolence in my heart. I wish I had someone who would help me. Some people have offered to help me, but they were so diabolically repulsive that I threw a Toby Jug at them.

Tuesday, 10 September 1963
All day in the bloody rowing boat, until I was aching all over. Charles Hawtry was pissed. Breath smelled appallingly. It's a disgrace. Still, one must be charitable.

Sunday, 23 July 1967
Dinner with Joe Orton & Ken Halliwell. I love them, they are both so kind, even if Joe does trade in toilets. I let rip with the most pungent & sustained fart. Neither Joe or Ken seemed to mind, they are both quite sophisticated in this respect. However, some obnoxious in-bred bore at the next table said "Poo - how revolting!". If I could have leapt over to her table & torn her head from her shoulders, I would have done, but my knees are not one hundred percent today.

Ken & Joe are rubbish. They deserve each other. I hope they die.

Sunday, 24 March 1968
I had the bowel motion & went to tip my fag ash down the loo & burned me cock. There's always something.

Monday, 13th May 1968
At the studios today, to brighten things up, I hid my cock between my legs & impersonated a vagina for Angela Douglas. She sunk her head in her hands & moaned "Oh! God - how horrible" & didn't find it amusing at all. This is where she lacks graciousness.

Wednesday, 26 May 1971
Had Sid, Hattie, Joan, Barbara, Bernard & Charlie around for dinner. They were all perfectly awful except for Barbara whom I love more than anything else in the world, & even she is a stupid cunt.

Wednesday 5 March 1975
The BBC showed a pathetic thing called "Last of the Summer Wine" with Michael Bates, Peter Sallis and that Owen being repulsive. It was banal dialogue and had the laughter dubbed on. It was chronic.

Sunday, 22 February 1976
Today is my 50th birthday. I spent a full hour on the toilet, far longer than I usually afford myself, and felt substantially better for it. Presents were a shower, as usual. Sid sent me a pepper mill shaped like a fish. It must be French. What on Earth does he think I'm going to do with a fish puking pepper onto my Fish Fingers? I despair.

Monday, 27 July 1981
Watched the Panorama programme about Iraq and it was the usual pious rubbish about Saddam Hussein being a tyrant & a torturer. When such a leader is removed, the ensuing chaos is deplored by the same censurers.

Sunday, 27 December 1981
I walked touston thro' driving wind & snow & found all the papers had gone ... Staggered home thro' the slush & thought that this must be the most miserable period I've experienced since 1976.

Thursday, 21 July 1983
Talking to Tony Hatch today. Bloody musicians. He said that my farts were the opposite of music; release, sustain, decay, attack. I hadn't the foggiest what he meant, and I left him in no doubt as to what level of unutterable cunt I considered him. Cunt.

Monday, 2 December, 1985
Philip Larkin is dead. Surely the whole world must end now that this fine man has left it? I scribbled a quick poem in my notebook when I heard, although if anyone should ever read it I would squeal and die. Alright then, here it is. "Philip Larkin / I've thought about parking / My penis in your gob / Oh Mr. Larkin / The dog's are barking / Won't you suck my nob?" I call it O'd To Larkin. Of course, I would never have asked him when he was alive - he might have said yes, and the man was a rapist and a wife-beater.

Thursday, 14 April, 1988
Bloody hell! My back hurts so much & everything's shit. I bet I'm going to die soon. Wouldn't that be the way? I'll bet I die on the toilet. The indignity of some doctor trying to pull my trousers up over my shitty arse is something I am glad that I shall not be there to witness. Everything is so shit, I really can't see the point in anything, it's all so fucking shit. I'm going to put loads of pills in my mouth, sit on the toilet, and see what happens.