Diary
Diary
My husband says I only write books in order to have a launch party. Not so. I also write books…
Diary
My husband says I only write books in order to have a launch party. Not so. I also write books…
Diary
Off to prison to visit a writer friend, first jailed led some years ago for trying to find a hit…
Diary
Off to prison to visit a writer friend, first jailed led some years ago for trying to find a hit…
Diary
Down here in west Cornwall, the days are long and summer is on the wing. Like the Tories in Scotland,…
Diary
Down here in west Cornwall, the days are long and summer is on the wing. Like the Tories in Scotland,…
Diary
For the first time since the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team six years ago, a Test match side…
Diary
Martin Williams, former head of the government’s air quality science unit, has declared that the reason we have a problem…
Diary
The aftermath of a general election is a difficult time for any party leader, unless like Mr Cameron you have…
Diary
For the 2005 general election, I had a party featuring a gigantic cheesecake with differentiated segments by allegiance. It contained…
Diary
I am writing a play about Dr Johnson and his Dictionary. It will be performed in Scotland later this year.…
Diary
I have escaped this rather depressing election campaign by retreating to my home in la France profonde — to be…
Diary
Lunch with the man who hanged Saddam. My irrepressible old Baghdad friend Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Ealing neurologist turned Iraqi national security…
Diary
To the dentist. And for an extraction. I hadn’t had a tooth out in decades. But the twinges when I…
Diary
So far, what an infuriating election campaign. We have the most extraordinary array of digital, paper and broadcasting media at…
Diary
I am living in rustic seclusion while writing a book. Our only cultural outing of the week was to Newbury…
Diary
I never knew classicists could be so scary! Last week I wrote a Telegraph article saying classics exams had been…
Diary
It’s dangerous, in my line of work, to promise you’ll be anywhere by 8 p.m. I made this mistake recently,…
Diary
This last week, in India, I visited six cities in seven days: Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Calcutta and New Delhi.…
Diary
Last week I went to the exhilarating English National Opera production of Wagner’s The Mastersingers — five hours of wonderful…
Diary
It’ll be a Skype interview, says the producer from Greek television, and not live. In TV-speak that usually means not…
Diary
All this fuss about Fifty Shades of Grey! I wonder how many people have actually read all three books? Sado-masochism…
Diary
Just back from Sri Lanka, a place I first went to in 1981. It was then a dreamy island. I…
Diary
An excellent test of character is a person’s response to being offered an Oldie of the Year Award. There have…
Diary
Dry January is tougher than it sounds. Well, for me anyway. It’s now been some 28 days since I’ve had…
