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.
I was completely taken aback by the brutality of Casino Royale. I had asked various friends who had seen the film, including two mothers who had gone with their children, whether they would recommend it. One mother told me that she and her 11-year-old boy had loved it — he had already seen it twice.
Monday Trust Labour to go and apologise for the slave trade. The cheek of it! We played just as big a part, if not bigger, in the atrocities of Roots. It’s just as much ours to say sorry for, and Dave would have done it so much better. With real tears. Well, see if we
When, 50-odd years ago, I started in what was then known as the Business, later the Arts and more recently the Media, I was warned not to express opinions openly, for fear of alienating the Public. Added to that, my generation of little girls was told to be seen and not heard, and to do
MONDAY Life is just one long crisis. Big row over what to take to Sudan in Lord A’s jet. I just thought that a few Harrods hampers thrown in with the medical supplies might cheer people up a bit, although possibly I shouldn’t have forked out for them myself on my account card. (Have given
Beijing Last time I was in China it was for the handover in Hong Kong. I stood in Tiananmen Square with tens of thousands of others as the clock went to midnight. This time another clock is ticking — counting down to the eighth of the eighth of 2008, an especially chosen auspicious date, for
MONDAY Fab write-ups of our top secret meeting with unions. (Another great U-turn!) Of course, what we couldn’t reveal is how embarrassing it was when they told Dave how fantastic he is. It was bordering on creepy. The guy from the Long List of Letters which have something to do with manual labour asked him
In tandem with Asa Briggs, I am speaking at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center atop Boston University. This is a truly remarkable institution, yet, even in Boston, Mass., surprisingly few people know about it. Gotlieb himself was an extraordinary man; a Rhodes scholar, he began by collecting British archives over 40 years ago —
Am sleeping on the bunk bed at Dave and Sam’s. The atmosphere is v tense. SUNDAY Am sleeping on the bunk bed at Dave and Sam’s. The atmosphere is v tense. We don’t know when they will come for us, but we know they will come and when they do we have to be ready.
Ring ring …‘John Humphrys speaking.’ ‘Oh that’s wonderful because I just know I can help you!’ This has been happening a lot in the past week or two. Ring ring …‘John Humphrys speaking.’ ‘Oh that’s wonderful because I just know I can help you!’ This has been happening a lot in the past week or
MondayWe have to stop Gordon from stealing the environment! It was Dave’s idea to save the planet. It’s theft, pure and simple, what Labour is doing. Jed has written ‘Ownership’ in big green letters on the whiteboard. We’ve all got to come up with five ideas (why is it always five of everything in politics?)
I’ve been doing a stupid amount of travelling recently. I’ve been doing a stupid amount of travelling recently. First to Dublin to appear on The Late Late Show, the world’s longest running chat show. It’s a televisual extravaganza; Ireland’s answer to Parkinson, Question Time and Trisha all rolled into one. I was the final guest,