Diary
Diary
The most unfashionable show on television, Songs of Praise, has had a makeover. The BBC had apparently discovered that the…
Diary
Oh God, it’s happened again. Another evening where I’m surrounded by people I know personally or have interviewed, and I…
Diary
Two million pounds can buy you consideration for a place on a medical trial! Every year untold numbers of potential…
Diary
Do fish have loins? Last Tuesday, in a pretentious restaurant, I ordered a ‘loin of sea trout’. It looked just…
Diary
To the British embassy in Paris for a colloquium on ‘Napoleon and Wellington in War and Peace’ organised by our…
Diary
In order to promote the Dylan Thomas in Fitzrovia festival, I am trying to persuade Jason Morell, the director, that…
Diary
‘Please God, make me good, but not yet.’ I know the feeling. As I get older and more deeply retired,…
Diary
It was quite fun being named as the new writer of 007 — although actually I’d make a lousy spy.…
Diary
Last Tuesday I tried to sign up to a new life. My wife and I argued, slightly. ‘I don’t think…
Diary
This week marks another milestone in my 15-year battle with Richard Branson. Ever since he unsuccessfully sued me in 1999…
Diary
Until recently I used to claim that I had been literary editor of The Spectator for over 25 years; now…
Diary
I feel a bit about the Scottish referendum as I did about the 2005 Ashes series. In both cases, those of…
Diary
Lebanon The Beirut press corps gather to remember the murdered journalist Jim Foley. People stand for a minute’s silence, drink…
Diary
No, no, no, you don’t want a house abroad — the paperwork, the taxes, the piping, the cost of the…
Diary
Like many inward-looking children, I always doodled stories and poems. Knowing one wanted to be a writer is a different…
Diary
I made a welcome escape from sweltering Warsaw to the cloudy cool of Bodø, halfway up the coast of Norway,…
Diary
Wellington, Ontario A British visitor to this village might be disoriented by the flags. They look almost exactly like the…
Diary
I knew that the historian Sir Richard Evans was a rather abrasive and quarrelsome man, but I was staggered by…
Diary
Sport is like love: it can only really hurt you if you care. Or for that matter, bring joy. You…
Diary
I have written a play, but a month after it was sent to half a dozen theatres, I have heard…
Diary
Can there be anything more perfect than early July in London, when the sun is shining, the sky a cloudless…
Diary
The former proprietor of this magazine, Conrad Black, is in London at the moment with his gorgeous wife Barbara, and…
Diary
I’m an old conference hand going back to the Tories’ annual get-together of 1958. My headmaster, an Irish Christian Brother…
Diary
Could there be a more timely advert for the Better Together campaign than on the field of sport? What the…
Diary
To Paris, for the launch of the French edition of my novel about the Dreyfus affair. As we land, I…
