Monday OK, OK, I was wrong. (It does happen you know.) I may have been a teensy bit oversensitive about the whole ‘marriage’ thing. But I am now prepared to admit that it does seem that it may, after all, be the answer to everything. I cannot argue with statistics showing that hardly anybody on
I arrive at David Bailey’s Clerkenwell studio. Bailey is doing a shoot for Lancôme; I have been asked to interview the Spanish supermodel, Inés Sastre. The shoot is the usual story — unidentified people with ponytails roaming round stained boxes of mini-croissants, a friendly, normal make-up artist, loud, cool music and a simultaneous air of
Monday Am fed up. It simply cannot be the case that everyone smoked cannabis at school. They’re clearly all just saying it to suck up to Dave. Head office unbearable. I’ve had it up to here with Moroccan black, red seal and ‘Maui wowie’. Well, I’m not going to lie. I have never smoked marijuana.
It’s finally dawned on me that my relationship with the Conservative party has irrevocably changed. Dave and his young, dynamic, thrusting team are simply not interested in me or my Neanderthal views. They couldn’t give a stuff what I think. And I don’t blame them. There are far more votes to be gained from stern
Monday What a morning! Was having coffee with Jed’s new PA, Janice. Lovely lady. V spiritual — although some might say a bit severe-looking with the shaved head. Anyway, as Nigel says, she’s ‘taken a shine to me’. She tells me things that are troubling her and today she told me something’s going on which
Since my two children have dispersed to Hollywood and gap-year Sydney, I spend a great deal of time at home with the individual who needs me most: my house — mean, moody, magnificent, prone to upsets if left. Its tanks conveniently overflowed when we went away to Los Angeles at Christmas. That’ll show me. Today
SUNDAY Hideous day of torment fielding non-stop calls from rude reporters asking, ‘What’s Dave got against Catholics?’ and ‘Does he support gay rights, or what?’ (We should go ahead with Gids’s plan to put the press through to a call centre in Delhi at weekends.) Was only just coping when Nigel rang to ask how the holding
There are a few fantasy gigs around, those jobs which we minor celebrities know deep down that we’re never going to be offered, but which we prepare for anyway, just in case. Appearing on Desert Island Discs, hosting Have I Got News For You, playing James Bond in the movies, writing the Spectator Diary. All
MONDAY The scariest thing was waiting for us in the meeting room this morning. It was a huge projected figure on the wall with the head of Shilpa Shetty and the body of Jade Goody. Jed marched in, stood in front of it and said, ‘Ideas?’ Everyone mute. Except Wonky Tom who can’t bear silences
It is one of the great mysteries of modern geopolitics. How the hell has Condoleezza Rice got away with it for so long? There she is, Secretary of State of the United States and one of the most powerful people on the planet. It is Condi Rice who leads on behalf of you, me, the
Monday Don’t ask me why, but suddenly the buzzword is ‘Thatcher’. Memo marked ‘Urgent’ says the T-word count for an average speech is now ten times minimum ‘until further notice’. Jed rushed into the office this morning all breathless and sweaty, and announced extra greenie points (frappuccino machine tokens, carbon offset holiday credits, soft loo-roll
If you have started to fear that Tesco, that rampaging retail beast, is running the country, then you may be right. Let me explain. When Time magazine made everyone who uses the internet their ‘Person of the Year’ last month, it got us all thinking about the nature of ‘power’ in the modern technological age.
Monday Who would have thought thrift could be so much fun! Am having a ball teaching working people to be careful with their money as part of our ‘Live Life For Less’ campaign. Obviously we can’t actually cut the cost of living or mess about with interest rates and inflation (we’re not going there again!)
The new year is little more than a week old and while everybody else is no doubt still righteously munching lettuce leaves, joining gyms and going teetotal, I’ve already broken Personal Resolution Number One: to reduce my carbon footprint. Barely off a Ryanair flight from Provence (where we’d spent New Year in freakishly hot sunshine,
Monday Happy New Year and May The Force Be With You in 2007! I think it’s fair to say that Dave’s brilliant message sent shivers down all our spines, mine included, even though I was in the office last week when Jed was writing it. V powerful stuff. If any of us were in any doubt
I was ready for the depression but it still doesn’t stop it hitting. Doing the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures was such an exhilarating, exhausting six-month roller-coaster ride. The climax was a two-week adrenaline-charged loop-the-loop staging what felt like five wild maths pantos. Then the last lecture is given, filmed and delivered and bang, the ride
New York The highlight of my year was undoubtedly interviewing George Clooney. I don’t mean to be star-struck, but in the presence of the square-jawed one my professional façade went Awol. The United Nations is usually a bit short on glamour, but on the day George came to talk about Darfur, a little bit of
Well, here they are! My exciting New Year’s Resolutions for 2007!1) Make more policy Controversial, I know. But after long chat with Jed am convinced that this is where I can make my mark. He says, and I agree, that policy is far too important to be left to politicians, ‘especially clueless Tories. This is
Last week, after years of the best possible intentions, I finally managed to make my virgin visit down under to sunny Sydney. With Elton fully ensconced in a fortnight of antipodean touring and work to be done promoting our new teen comedy It’s a Boy Girl Thing, I was able to justify the trip while
I despair. All this nonsense in the papers about Sam’s £300,000 bonus totally misses the point of everything we’ve been trying to explain for the past year. MONDAY I despair. All this nonsense in the papers about Sam’s £300,000 bonus totally misses the point of everything we’ve been trying to explain for the past year.