Gossip

Learning the art lingo: the people, periods and -isms

25 May 2024 9:00 am

An aspiring artist turned journalist, Bianca Bosker wheedles her way into the New York art scene – of gallerists, collectors, glamour and gossip

You can make anything up about the royal family and it will be printed as a matter of fact

30 April 2022 9:00 am

Royal gossip is largely invented, says Philip Hensher – but Tina Brown repeats it regardless

Brightest of the Bright Young People: the rich, rackety life of Cecil Beaton

12 June 2021 9:00 am

In December 1979, the 28-year-old Hugo Vickers, dining with a friend, declared: ‘I see little point to life these days.’…

Kenneth Rose

High society and low gossip: the journals of Kenneth Rose

15 December 2018 9:00 am

Kenneth Rose was gossip columnist by appointment to the aristocracy and gentry. He was, of course, a snob — nobody…

Why suburban ladies really play tennis

5 May 2018 9:00 am

Because my mother is always telling me everything will be all right if I join a tennis club, I’ve joined…

The new Ivy doesn’t have the old magic (if there ever was any)

27 June 2015 9:00 am

The Ivy is a Playmobil-style faux-medieval restaurant in a triangular building opposite The Mousetrap; of the two, The Ivy is…

Plutarch on smartphone addiction

26 July 2014 9:00 am

Adults, we are told, as much as children, become gibbering wrecks if deprived of their mobiles or iPhones for more…

Dear Mary: How can I spike a gossip-pedlar’s guns?

10 May 2014 9:00 am

Q. On arrival at a top level dinner, I was surprised to see at the table a woman who, I…

Hotel Chelsea

Where artists went to drink and die

8 February 2014 9:00 am

Once below a time (to quote the man himself) the bloated poet Dylan Thomas slouched back to New York’s Chelsea…

My family's better days

18 January 2014 9:00 am

Simon Blow recalls the wealth, recklessness and beauty of his family’s better days

The 'semi-detached' member of Margaret Thatcher's cabinet

18 January 2014 9:00 am

John Biffen was mentally ill. This is the outstanding revelation of Semi-Detached, a memoir which has been assembled from his…

Can virgins have babies?

9 November 2013 9:00 am

Mrs Christabel Russell, the heroine of Bevis Hillier’s sparkling book, was a very modern young woman. She had short blonde…

'He said you said she said' — country chatter is exhausting

26 October 2013 9:00 am

Speeding down the farm track from my little country retreat, I came across the gamekeeper in his Defender. I wound…

The Rothschilds, the Spenders, the Queen...

19 October 2013 9:00 am

The novelist David Plante is French-Québécois by ancestry, grew up in a remote Francophone parish in Yankee New England and…

Darling Monster, edited by John Julius Norwich - review

12 October 2013 9:00 am

It must have been awful for Diana and Duff Cooper to be separated from their only child during the war,…

As Luck Would Have It, by Derek Jacobi - review

28 September 2013 9:00 am

Alan Bennett once overheard an old lady say, ‘I think a knighthood was wasted on Derek Jacobi,’ and I know…

There and Then: Personal Terms 6, by Frederic Raphael - review

31 August 2013 9:00 am

Frederic Raphael is forensic in his description of the failures of successful people. He is enviously superior and he is…

This Town, by Mark Leibovich - review

24 August 2013 9:00 am

Many books have been written about the corruption, venality and incestuousness that characterise Washington DC, but none has been as…