Diary
Virginia Ironside’s diary: Fifty Shades is a story of redemption (but I still won’t watch it)
All this fuss about Fifty Shades of Grey! I wonder how many people have actually read all three books? Sado-masochism…
Sebastian Faulks’s diary: My task for 2015 – get a job
Just back from Sri Lanka, a place I first went to in 1981. It was then a dreamy island. I…
Alexander Chancellor’s diary: Picking golden oldies, Ken Dodd, and the sadness of Jack Nicholson
An excellent test of character is a person’s response to being offered an Oldie of the Year Award. There have…
Nigel Farage’s diary: How I survived Dry January
Dry January is tougher than it sounds. Well, for me anyway. It’s now been some 28 days since I’ve had…
Tom Holland’s diary: Fighting jihadism with Mohammed, and bowling the Crown Prince of Udaipur
As weather bombs brew in the north Atlantic, I’m roughing it by heading off to Rajasthan, and the literary festival…
Panic, profiteering and a mysterious girl in a Mini: notes from Moscow
Moscow Here we go again. The rouble slides, then tumbles, and slides again. For those of us who remember the…
Nicky Haslam’s diary: Marie-Anna Berta Felicie Johanna Ghislaine Theodora Huberta Georgina Helene Genoveva and other big names
I was once bundled into a police car in Palm Springs to explain why I didn’t have snow-tyres on my…
Bruce Anderson’s diary: If you want to understand the SNP, it helps to be an ex-Trot
An embarrassing confession: in the late 1960s, I was a Trotskyite. But that period of political adolescence has its uses.…
Joan Collins’s diary: The joy of fake Christmas trees
Every year Christmas comes earlier and earlier in America. Cards, baubles and imitation trees were being sold in the big…
Stig Abell’s diary: My days in court with the Sun
Soon after I joined the Sun as managing editor (among other things, I used to review novels for The Spectator),…
Jeremy Paxman’s diary: Why must Songs of Praise chase advertiser-friendly viewers?
The most unfashionable show on television, Songs of Praise, has had a makeover. The BBC had apparently discovered that the…
Richard Madeley’s diary: Forgetting Tom Conti’s name, and other harrowing experiences
Oh God, it’s happened again. Another evening where I’m surrounded by people I know personally or have interviewed, and I…
Alexander Masters’s diary: The idea that could unlock dozens of new cancer drugs
Two million pounds can buy you consideration for a place on a medical trial! Every year untold numbers of potential…
Barry Humphries’s diary: The bookshop ruined by Harry Potter
Do fish have loins? Last Tuesday, in a pretentious restaurant, I ordered a ‘loin of sea trout’. It looked just…
Andrew Roberts’s diary: Just who’s the despot here – Napoleon or Paxman?
To the British embassy in Paris for a colloquium on ‘Napoleon and Wellington in War and Peace’ organised by our…
Griff Rhys Jones’s diary: I am now less of a celebrity than my daughter’s dog
In order to promote the Dylan Thomas in Fitzrovia festival, I am trying to persuade Jason Morell, the director, that…
Prue Leith’s diary: I want to be green, but I’ve got some flights to take first...
‘Please God, make me good, but not yet.’ I know the feeling. As I get older and more deeply retired,…
Anthony Horowitz’s diary: Keeping James Bond’s secrets for the Smersh of publishing
It was quite fun being named as the new writer of 007 — although actually I’d make a lousy spy.…
Jeremy Vine’s diary: Zipcars, hipster milk and the word that means I’m losing an argument
Last Tuesday I tried to sign up to a new life. My wife and I argued, slightly. ‘I don’t think…
Tom Bower’s Diary: Resuming hostilities with Richard Branson
This week marks another milestone in my 15-year battle with Richard Branson. Ever since he unsuccessfully sued me in 1999…
Mark Amory's diary: Confessions of a literary editor
Until recently I used to claim that I had been literary editor of The Spectator for over 25 years; now…
Tom Holland's diary: Alex Salmond is the Scottish referendum's answer to Shane Warne
I feel a bit about the Scottish referendum as I did about the 2005 Ashes series. In both cases, those of…
Paul Wood's diary: From James Foley's memorial to gunfire in the streets
Lebanon The Beirut press corps gather to remember the murdered journalist Jim Foley. People stand for a minute’s silence, drink…
Andrew Marr’s diary: Seeing shadows of Syria in Limousin’s ghost village
No, no, no, you don’t want a house abroad — the paperwork, the taxes, the piping, the cost of the…
A.N. Wilson's diary: The book that made me a writer – and the pushchair that made me an old git
Like many inward-looking children, I always doodled stories and poems. Knowing one wanted to be a writer is a different…
