Diary
My new show with Andrew Lloyd Webber
The week of my cricket team’s annual tour of Cornwall. I formed Heartaches CC in 1973 and 765 games later…
Why I gave up on the Tories
The days between my leaving the Tories and joining Reform were an odd uneven time. It was the hardest decision…
Bring back the book launch!
It’s that time of year when the local librairie-papeterie in your French holiday village is full of signs for la…
Why France hates Macron
One of the pleasures of spending the summer in France is that I can turn aside from our national problems…
Don’t judge a book by its author
I am entombed, like Edgar Allan Poe’s prematurely buried man, listening through headphones to a contemporary Russian fugue for organ…
Don’t believe the doomsday talk about London
It is one of the joys of sport that friendships forged in changing rooms and on playing fields can be…
Welcome to the Age of Jerks
How screwed is Britain? I’ve checked with the Impartiality Police. They said stick to the facts. Like many ailing, ageing…
Roman Polanski ruined my hair
The Prom was Berlioz and Strauss, but the Albert Hall is always the star for me. It is a lover’s…
The nostalgic joy of Frinton-on-Sea
For the recent heatwave, it was my mission to escape our little Wiltshire cottage, where it hit 35°C. It has…
Save us from the Lime bike invasion
I’m a Londoner born and bred, and I love this city, even though it’s slowly being destroyed by the insidious…
My P.G. Wodehouse summer
Normally I model myself on one of the more retiring of the Desert Fathers, as much as a man living…
A book signing – or a mental breakdown?
The late John Updike once wrote an amusing article about signing books. This wasn’t at some literary event with a…
Who wants to read an unemotional memoir?
On the hottest day of the year, St Pancras station would not have been my first choice for lunch, but…
Beware taking up running in your fifties
Over a hotel breakfast in Brisbane, I showed Sir Alan Hollinghurst my injuries. We’d met the previous week at the…
What happened to Piers Morgan
‘What happened to Piers Morgan?’ asked a Spectator writer last weekend. The answer, according to slavishly pro-Israel commentator Jonathan Sacerdoti,…
Satire is nothing without contempt
On 30 April, the solicitors Mishcon de Reya asked me to join a panel commemorating the 25th anniversary of the…
Should we give weight loss jabs to children?
I have seen the future of food. And some of you won’t like it. On a research trip to the…
The truth about my relationship with Phil Spencer
I never thought I would read a headline like ‘Kirstie Allsopp’s husband enables upskirting’. Regrettably, this type of nonsense has…
Can the British film industry survive Trump’s tariffs?
On the road with a new book, I recently spoke at a literary luncheon hosted by the Cambridge Festival. What…
How silence makes music
‘What!? But they won’t let you in!’ and ‘What!? But they’ll detain you at the border!’ and ‘What!? But they’re…
Bring on the Trump protests
The coming week will see the last major commemoration of a second world war anniversary – 80 years since VE-Day…
Men are allowed to fail, too
The weather in Bath has been preposterously good, with the Royal Crescent glowing in a soft, lemony light. I’m here…
Spare us from performative piety
Lent did not, I confess, start well. Cheltenham fell in its first week, and the Gold Cup is hardly the…
Heaven is an oeuf en gelée
The cherry blossom was at its finest as I made my last early morning trip through Regent’s Park to Broadcasting…
My manifesto for the next Archbishop of Canterbury
When I told a Westminster political editor that my novel NUNC! was about the prophet Simeon and the Nunc Dimittis,…
