New York Tennessee Williams wrote Baby Doll with her in mind, and she was considered the sexiest blonde bombshell ever, much sexier than Jean Harlow, whom she portrayed on film. She was great in The Carpetbaggers, The Great Divide, Harlow, Giant and countless other 1950s, ’60s and ’70s hits. Carroll Baker is 91, still very
If we cram any more doctors into our spare rooms we can put a sign outside advertising NHS accommodation. We came by the first one when he answered my ad on a well-known website, booked for a few nights and ended up staying for years. He has a family home elsewhere, but needs somewhere to
The Farm, Laikipia I realised the worst drought of this generation was at last over this morning when two Samburu gentlemen arrived on the farm, asking to buy rams. My nomadic neighbours sense very well when it’s time to put a tup in with the flock. In just this month a full moon and the
I happily did my bit for Blighty during the coronation and drank nothing but English wine, beer and spirits the whole weekend. If I was guilty of slightly over-egging the pudding it was only through an excessive bout of patriotism and I can report with pride that even my much-needed hangover cure – The Original
A couple of years ago I thought seriously about buying an electric car. Not a hybrid, but the full monty. There was one in particular I liked the look of and I even contacted a dealership to ask whether they’d accept my diesel-powered VW Touran in part-exchange. The answer was yes, but it was still
Who can turn lying on a hospital gurney into a photo op? Emma Raducanu can, of course – beaming as she showed off her bandaged wrist and arm, in a photo of such quality it didn’t look like it was snapped by a passing nurse’s iPhone. It left me with a renewed sense of foreboding
Q. As I live just over an hour away from London I usually choose to take a late train home after parties, but train fever often overshadows my enjoyment of the gatherings. This is partly because even a glance at my watch will look rude and spoil the vibe. Do you think a braille watch
The Alice lives in a ground-floor room of the Randolph Hotel in Oxford, which venerates the fantastical and the savage, as Oxford does. The savage lives in the Randolph’s dedicated crime museum with cocktails: the (Inspector) Morse Bar. The Alice is named for two women: Alice Liddell, the daughter of the ecclesiastical dean of Christchurch
‘Why is there water all over the bathroom floor?’ asked my husband, without doing anything about it. It was my fault. During a bank holiday soak, I heard the Radio 4 book serialisation of Hands of Time by Rebecca Struthers say that ‘the origin of the modern word hour’ is the Egyptian god Horus. I
We no longer hold hands because you use a walking-stick to stand. Instead we slip together afternoons, stretch across the double-bed we can’t use nights now you’re so restless. I lie fingers on your arm, toes against your skinny tibia and it’s enough through seaweed feet to slither deep, not to sleep but into another
Eventually we get Dad down into the boatwhere he loudly invites all the elderly ladiesto a seat on his lap‘as the benches are so squashed’.He is talking too much –it’s the joy of a captive audiencebut he’s been off the boards too longand needs to rediscover his art. The boat swivels off in a flourish,a
From the painting by Claude Monet Look closely, and you’ll see sand in the paint from the beach at Trouville, where I sat with Camille that summer. From this, you would hardly guess that war was coming; that Prussia had lured us in; that the clouds were not clouds, but the report of cannon fire.
The Ship of State is rolling on,rolling on to its fate. The Captain is elsewhere.A cardboard mirage stands uponthe Bridge. Officers bustle round,looking important, achieving little. The Crew come and go,seemingly as they please, do enough, just enough, to keepthe enterprise afloat. But so much is automatic —and for the rest, the mantra is: avoid
