Diary – 9 June 2006

Researching the dead can feel like being buried alive with them. After months spent with manuscripts and dusty books about the 16th century I even look like a corpse. But this week I am taking a heart-stimulating trip to Manhattan. I am giving a talk to the St Andrew’s Society of the State of New York, the oldest charitable organisation in the country. I was a bit concerned about frightening its members with my ghostly pallor, but a young friend from Men’s Health came to my aid. He arrived for a lunch date at the London Library looking gorgeously sun-kissed. He has been spray-tanned, he tells me, and inspired by his healthy appearance I have booked myself for the same treatment at a beauty salon in a local former mining village.

At home I find a selection of my sons on ‘study leave’. They have GCSEs and A-levels to take and instead of being at school they are here, eating enormous quantities of food.