Cosmo Landesman

My day talking about penis size on the TfL cable car

16 March 2025 5:00 pm

For me, one of the great pleasures of public transport is getting into a conversation with a stranger. But in…

Why I won’t date younger women

14 March 2025 1:40 am

I recently got some good news I’d like to share: I’m thirty-six years old. Yes, I know I’m chronologically seventy…

Toby Young: love him or loathe him?

16 February 2025 5:24 pm

London Everyone has at least one friend that none of their other friends can stand, someone you love but everyone…

A tale of two parties

24 January 2025 7:55 pm

This is a tale of two London parties. They say something about London society, status, power, fame and fun —…

In praise of creative bores

26 December 2024 9:50 pm

I’ve been to a talk by two very clever and talented men: the American novelist and critic Jonathan Lethem and…

Should I grow old gracefully – or disgracefully?

28 September 2024 9:00 am

Now that I’m about to turn 70, I’m wondering: shall I grow old gracefully, or disgracefully? Everyone I know, young…

The thrill of being recognized

12 September 2024 9:40 pm

I had just left Tate Britain and was heading toward the Pimlico underground station when I noticed an attractive woman…

The tantric sex retreat that wasn’t

18 June 2024 1:00 am

When my girlfriend suggested we go away to a tantric retreat for the weekend in the English countryside, I couldn’t…

How to be friends with young people

15 May 2024 8:50 pm

Can an older person like me ever really be friends with a young person? At one time I would have…

The death of good conversation

16 April 2024 11:00 pm

London  At London parties you can find plenty of smart beautiful women and handsome charming men. You can find a cornucopia…

My life of genteel poverty

13 April 2024 9:00 am

Every year at the beginning of April, I tell myself I must top up my Isa before the 5 April…

Confessions of a closeted bourgeois boy

9 March 2024 9:00 am

Recently, I got very stoned. I haven’t been that stoned since I was at Woodstock. Or was it the first…

My friends keep dumping me

16 February 2024 4:40 am

T.S. Eliot was wrong. April is not the cruelest month — January is. It’s cold and bleak and days end…

Why have parties suddenly gotten good?

23 January 2024 9:00 pm

Not long ago this month’s column would have been one long gripe about how the party — as a forum…

Why BDSM is innately conservative

21 December 2023 10:30 am

My friend Evie complains that I never want to go out and have fun anymore. “You’ve become a boring old…

Grumpiness is a way of life

18 November 2023 9:00 am

The cult of cleverness

30 September 2023 1:13 pm

Whenever I’m at a dinner party with very clever people, I always feel like I’m the dumbest person in the…

Can this dating gimmick help me find love?

19 August 2023 9:00 am

Could a new gimmick help me find love?

I can’t make up my mind about microdosing

16 August 2023 12:00 pm

I know that microdosing — the practice of taking a very small amount of a mood enhancing drug — has…

Why I won’t grow up

19 July 2023 11:51 pm

Recently, a famous American novelist came to stay at my place in London. In her later Substack post she described…

Literary festivals are no fun

22 June 2023 1:00 am

This is the season when literary festivals start to happen all over the UK. From the highlands of Scotland to…

Can I be a woman?

17 June 2023 9:00 am

How I tried — and failed — to become a woman

The joy of missing out

26 May 2023 11:09 pm

As I write this the coronation of King Charles hasn’t happened yet, but I’m having great fun watching the procession…

Going grey

29 April 2023 9:00 am

The sex lives of writers

31 March 2023 2:17 am

A fellow writer recently asked me if I would prefer to be famous as a great writer or famous as…