with scaled back celebrations — as the omicron variant continues to drive up covid infections. covid infections in the uk reach a new high — its estimated one in 30 people would have tested positive in the run up to christmas. one study suggests the risk of hospitalisation with omicron is about one—third that of the delta variant. wildfires rip through parts of colorado in the united states — destroying hundreds of homes and forcing tens of thousands to evacuate the area. and mourners in south africa have been paying their respects to the late archbishop desmond tutu. now on bbc news, mel brooks talks to alan yentob about his life.

i know the word can be overused, but mel brooks is a legend — a movie legend, a musical legend and a comedy legend. oscars, emmys, baftas, tonys, grammys — he's won them all many times over. # springtime for hitler and germany. # deutschland is happy and gay. # we are marching to a faster pace, look out, here # comes the master race. mel brooks was fearless — he broke every rule. but he kept to the ones for lockdown, even telling his son, max, to go away. i'm going, i'm going. love you. he's been locked in writing

his autobiography and, after some persuasion, let me in to talk about it. alan, you flew on an aeroplane all the way from london. idid. to see me here in southern california. yes, and this pandemic, which, when max introduced you, 16 million people were watching that, so you are a bit of a hero. well, also, max, what are you going to do? you cannot go to your lunches, you cannot go to your office, you cannot do your onstage stand—up with a lot of people. you are stuck. you are stuck with yourself in the living room, what are you going to do? i said, i don't know what i'm going to do, frankly. i'm going to go crazy. he said, no, you are going to write your memoir! and you did what you were told.

idid. and you called it all about me. it is all about me. and it is a good title. it starts in brooklyn. i remember asking you about brooklyn and whether there were anyjews in brooklyn. and i said nothing butjews in brooklyn. was there something special about being jewish in brooklyn at the time in new york? no, everybody was. every single human being in brooklyn was a jew at that point, so it is quite ordinary, an ordinary thing to be. i went to manhattan and met all of these gentiles and it was frightening. i thought, my god, there are other people besidesjews in the world? your mother comes out as a bit of a heroine, you call her a heroine. yes, she absolutely is. she lost her husband, my father, when i was only two years old and had to raise four boys. she had to dress them, feed them and get them to school and make beds and she worked a 20—hour day. she got up at six and she went to bed at midnight and someone

in the family told me that she thought she would have a fourth child in the hopes that it would be a girl. she wanted a girl. and then she said, all right, another boy, i will take it and we can see what we can do. she said to the doctor, i don't want him. would you like him? the doctor said, no, and asked around the building. and everyone came to look and said, nicely, no. so my mother kept me and she has been happy ever since because i am the one — not irving, not lenny, not bernie, but melvin — is the one that sends her the $16.93 a month, they don't send her the cheque. i send her the cheque. in the interview later, say it is $116, all right? promise? 0k.

# you must have been a beautiful baby, you must have been a wonderful # child, when you are only starting in kindergarten, # i bet you drove the other kids wild. # and when it came to winning blue ribbons, i bet you showed the other # kids how, i can see thejudges�* eyes as they handed you the prize, # you must have made the cutest bow, oh, you must have been a beautiful # baby, because, baby, look at you now. we were like pups in a cardboard box, you know, four boys, we never had money for anything. you talk about going to woolworths. the local woolworths, which was known as the five and 10 store because a lot of items were sold for five or 10 cents, we would often walk up and down the aisles and when the clerks weren't looking, we try to snatch something. not clerks, clarks.

we never called it stealing, but we called it taking. it was a softer, nicer word. let's go and take it. let's go and take it, correct. and one sunday afternoon, i tempted fate. there in a special display of roy rogers t—shirts was a pearl—handled toy replica of a roy rogers six shooter. it was the most thrilling thing i had ever seen. yeah. i picked it up, i was nearly at the door when hands grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and pulled me back into the store. "a great big man announced, i'm the manager and i'm sick "and tired of you kids ceiling. in a blinding flash, an idea popped into my head, i reached into my sweater, pulled out the toy gun and shouted "get back or i'll blow your head off." blow your head off" — with this toy gun! and he jumped back. and when hejumped back, i saw my escape route and fled from the five and 10 and never went back there again for fear that i would be recognised. it was great. i mean, it was called fast thinking.

i actually started my career in music at five. at five! everybody in my building work in the garment centre, they worked nowhere else, and ifigured, iwould probably end up there too, but my unclejoe changed my life. one day, he said, how would you like to see a cole porter musical on broadway called anything goes? what an experience. when the show was over, i was screaming and my hands were just stinging from applauding so much, i said, unclejoe! i'm not going to go to the garment centre, i'm going to go into show business. i want to do what they were doing on that stage! you're a miserable, cowardly, wretched little caterpillar. don't you ever want to become a butterfly? don't you want to spread your wings

and flap your way to glory? you're going tojump on me. you're going tojump on me, - i know you are going tojump on me. after three days of filming, joe levine he turns to me and says, i'll give you another $25,000 if you get rid of that curly haired guy. he said, he's just funny looking, he is not... there is no leading man there. and i said, ok. he's out. i said, he is gone. and that was a lesson — a great lesson for me, lying to the studio. now, here is a very important moment for you. i know how much buddy rich meant to you and i know drumming is something that you are passionate about. he was the best drummer in the world, i thought. he was sensational.

always kept the beat. i'm always at the centre of the beat. being a drummer at a 1k gave me a great sense of tempo and rhythm, and that was incredibly important in comedy. yes. and when the rim shot or when the joke reaches the peak, and how you explode it. you know, when i think about what you have said, about rhythm and pace,

the timing and silences, i think of so many of those scenes that were imprinted on my brain and in my heart. i cannot ever forget the moment when i watched springtime for hitler, where all thejews were, and then to see that shot of the audience stunned, staggered. staggered! they couldn't believe it. # springtime for hitler and germany, winter for poland and france, # springtime for hitler and germany, # come on, germans come into your dance. they were gobsmacked, they couldn't believe that such a thing could happen. i got many letters from many rabbis saying, how dare you?

and my basic answer was, you can't get on a soapbox with hitler, but you can make fun of him and you can reduce him to laughter and he can't win. well, talk about bad taste! # springtime for hitler and germany... ok, at 17 years old, you were recruited, you go into the army. the second world war, in combat, you were there. you are high—risk. a lot of ducking, i can tell you. a lot of ducking. you were clearing up landmines and things. yes, i was in normandy and they taught us about booby—traps.

"don't pull the chain, look in the water closet, "see if there is water and not dynamite. "pull the chain, you could go to heaven. mines — 45 degree angles with your bayonet, as soon as you hear, ting, tink, tink, yell sergeant! it was big and he could disarm it and it could blow up a tent, so you could imagine what it would do to a jew from brooklyn. so when anything like that was captured, we would rush in and strip it of all kinds of booby—traps and minds. that's quite... it scary. it's a scary, tough job. and you've still got this ambition in you to be in show business. oh, yeah. your career in comedy started in the mountains. would you please... ?

other people like to use the rowboat. i please bring in rowboat 101, that is the real- name of the rowboat — - 11, that's a hole in the middle. you're sinking. you were a tumbler. yes, a pool tumbler. you wake up thejews around the pool who have... who have overeaten? they over—ate, you will wake the people and i wore an alpaca coat in the derby and two cardboard suitcases filled with rocks or something and i go on the diving board and say, business is bad, i don't want to move! and i would jump off the diving board, go to the bottom and they would all laugh. and the lifeguard, who was not jewish, he could swim — arthur, he would laugh too, and i would look up from the bottom

of the pool, i didn't want to let my suitcases go, and the coat was...you know? i didn't know whether i would ever get to the top of the pool again, and i would go,... and he would spot me and finally he would get me up, so it was a matter of keeping them amused. thejewish mountains, you went there, really, they went there, really, for the food. they went there to die, because the food was cholesterol, it is all it was. lunch would fill them up to hear, they would eat... speaks yiddish. all yiddish words for doughy substances filled with yeast covered with creams, sometimes they would have lots of raw vegetables covered with one gallon of sour cream and they would eat that, then they would have sour cream for lunch, for desert, and that would be their lunch. and then ten gallons of hot tea and a glass of sour cream. and after that, they would sit and

rock on the porch, they would rock. and this is the most dangerous thing a jew could do, the most dangerous thing a jew could do in the mountains is sing dancing in the dark. why? because they never understood the range of that song and would invariably start in the wrong key. if you are going to sing it dancing in the dark, you have got to sad very low because the song goes very high and manyjews would die of a stroke because they would start too high, thinking it was a normal place to start dancing in the dark. so they would appear what would appear normal. # dancing in the dark... that doesn't sound too bad. # we are dancing in the dark... # and we can face the music together! # dancing in the... # dancing in the daaaaaaaaark! and a stroke and they would die because they don't know how high that song goes. you have got to start like this. low: # dancing in the dark.

# we are waltzing in the dark and it soon ends, and we can # face the music together, dancing, yes we are dancing in the dark. that was perfect early crosby. crosby, 39. ifeel good and i'm happy and i'm delighted. delighted to be here on the hollywood palace. delighted to be alive. when i wake up in the morning, i make a birthday cake. i make a cupcake one candle, i'm glad go in and out. what has...? i have asked you this many times. i don't even remember this! but it is funny. i had my original toupee then. carl, that's amazing. carl was an insane organiser.

he would organise, he came in one day with a tape recorder, it was actually a wire recorder. we were in a writers�* room and he came in and said, sir, i understand you're 2000 years old, someone told me. is that true? and i said, oh, boy. and suddenly i was a 2000 year old man. he created me. we have talked about carl, and there are many others in your life and they are all in the book, but there is one meeting, and it shows your hutzpah, if i can use a jewish word, which is which is the stalking of ann bancroft. i'm just looking at her picture. she is the most beautiful woman. she was the most amazing... when she came out and sang i want to get married... in the perry como show. the rehearsal. i saw that and i said, i have been looking for this all my life,

i didn't know it existed until i saw it. when she finished, i screamed, ann bancroft, i love you! i screamed it out. she said, who the hell are you? i said, you've never heard of me, i'm mel brooks. she said, i've heard of you, i've got your record! i've got your record, it is great. i saw her backstage and we talked and i never stopped seeing her and talking to her for the next 45 years. every day was bliss. i have heard that you are married to the most beautiful woman in the world, is this true, mr brooks? no, i'm married to ann bancroft. applause. ladies and gentlemen, my beautiful wife. they sing.

you've got to remember that at that stage, you were not earning much money. no, i was broke. she was paying for most of it. yeah, the show was off the air and when i met her, i told her, you do not want to be serious with me because i'm broke. i'm eating hot dogs for dinner. i have no money. you don't want to know me. she said, i will take a chance. i'll take a chance. they sing. applause. you have a couple more... there is no more, i don't care. we have got to do... you are finished. we have got to do your partner.

——obama. we're not to make him president again! he served two terms. i want to read what he said about you. you can read that. "we are here today to honour the very best of our fields. "as mel brook once said to his writers on blazing saddles, "which is a great film, write anything you want "because we will never be heard from again. "when he put the big beautiful medal around my neck, "he said, to mel brooks, for a lifetime of making the world laugh." unfortunately, many of the punch lines that have defined mel brooks's success cannot be repeated here. i was telling him that i went to see blazing saddles when i was ten, and he pointed out that i think according to the ratings, i should not have been allowed in the theatre.

bong! mumbling. what did he say? the sheriff is near. mumbling. hooray, hooray, hooray! i said, look, when this movie opens, we will all go to prison, so let it all out, throw it in the movie, and it was in exorable taste. but its heart was in the right place and the engine that drove it, the locomotive underneath that movie, was racial prejudice. yeah, he's a black guy, but he's a good guy and we knew

we were on the right road. and you wrote it with richard pryor. i wrote it with richard, who used the n word, oh, he scared the hell out of me. i said, richard, too much n word! he said, no, we needed, the bad guys have to say that. i said, ok, richard. and then you took the whole family in, there is a wonderful photograph. we took a wonderful photograph of the obamas and realised how short my family was, the obamas were like redwood trees next to us. he said, he warned me that he would catch me if i try to sell a medal on ebay. that's it. ok, that's it. we've talked for 2h hours. i know. have you given me a penny for all of this? no. not a cent. i don't mind, i love you, i do it forfun. the movie can be made, we have got to raise money to make the movie. the fees are not important. i am interested in the adjusted gross.

i want the gross after they are even dollar for dollar. what? who is it? oh, all right, come in, come in. come in. what is it? i'm on the phone. i just wondered whether. .. we still haven't got this ending sorted out. they haven't. .. it's this guy, yentob, from the bbc. no, they can't get an ending ending for this idiot documentary they are doing with me. what the hell does he want from me? tell me the deal again. they want to give us $16,000 upfront for everything? and what do we get if the picture's a hit? $1100? are you crazy? what? oh, ok, look, i have to do this documentary. i'll call you back.

hello, it doesn't feel much like the last day of december out there. an extraordinarily mild new year's eve — as we head through this evening into the start of the new year, it will stay very, very mild. quite windy. dry for many but not quite for all of us. this afternoon's temperatures, though, across northern scotland, eight or nine degrees, that's a bit above average. 15, 16 or 17 further south, that's a lot above average. some spells of sunshine in places. quite windy out there — increasingly windy across western parts, and some patchy rain for northern ireland and parts of scotland. as we go through this evening, while many places will be dry, we will see this band of potentially quite heavy rain pushing across northern ireland into south—west scotland and north—west england by midnight, by which point temperatures will be between nine and 13 degrees. but it will turn increasingly windy. these are the wind gusts to take us through the small hours of saturday, gusts of a0 to 50 mph around western coasts and maybe stronger than that in the most exposed locations. because low pressure will be pushing to the north—west of the uk. lots of the white lines, lots of isobars squeezing together so there will be some brisk winds

and also a weather front pushing its way eastwards. it may be this rain isn't particularly widespread but in places, it could be quite heavy as it works its way eastwards. some spells of sunshine, too. more showery rain into northern ireland and western scotland later. again, some of that could be on the heavy side. it stays fairly windy through the day and it stays exceptionally mild. 13 degrees in aberdeen and 15 for cardiff. somewhere we're likely get to 16 or 17 degrees through the afternoon. for sunday, things look quite unsettled. we'll see showers or longer spells of rain, some sunny spells as well. a subtle change in wind direction — winds coming in from the west. still mild — still very mild, really, but not quite as mild as it is at the moment. and then a bigger change as we head through next week. initially it looks unsettled, low pressure always close by — we'll see showers on longer spells of rain — but as that area of low pressure works its way eastwards, it will for a time open the door

to a northerly wind. so around tuesday into the middle part of the week, things will start to feel quite a lot of colder with potential for wintry showers in the north. temperatures stay a little lower as we head through the week and it remains unsettled with more rain at times.

this is bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in the uk and around the globe. our top stories... entire neighbourhoods in the us state of colorado have been engulfed by flames as wildfires force tens of thousands to leave their homes. countries around the world are seeing in the new year with scaled back celebrations, as the omicron variant continues to drive up covid infections. covid infections in the uk reach a new high — its estimated one in 30 people would have tested positive in the run—up to christmas.