‘History in the making can be most exhausting.’ When I first read these words — by Noël Coward — I immediately assumed they applied to the writing of it. Having just finished a long book about the loves of Louis XIV, I thought I knew all about that exhaustion. So much for solipsism. Noël Coward
SATURDAY Phonecalls to Dorset police: 235. Nights without sleep: 3. Double espressos: 25. Where is Dave’s pass?!!?!? We applied two months ago for-heaven’s-to-Betsy-Duncan-Smith’s-sake. Chief constable most unhelpful. ‘How do we know your so-called Mr Cameron’s not an al-Qa’eda sleeper cell, eh? Eh?’ Why would they do this? Am starting to feel nervous. I mean, how
I embarked upon my new book, On Royalty, because, as a republican, I was genuinely baffled by the devotion monarchies seem to inspire. Yet the more I looked into it, the less there seemed to be to the republican cause: monarchy may be antique and democratically indefensible, but it becomes hard to see what would
I have always been a confident person. Whether setting up my own business, pitching a new idea or appearing on TV, I have always thought that I am perfectly capable of holding my own. But speaking at a party conference? It never even crossed my mind that I would go to one, let alone organise
Monday Look, this thing with the tree isn’t funny. It’s deadly serious. Jed has found out from the ad agency where they got the template and it’s not good news. Terrible showdown with little guy in red specs who looked just like Lord Saatchi’s mini-me. Personally I don’t see it makes much difference that our
Talk about from the ridiculously sublime to the sublimely ridiculous. My fiancée and I have just been staying at the incomparable 13th-century Château de Bagnols near Lyons. Spectacular panoramic views of the Beaujolais countryside; a Michelin-starred restaurant; Olga Polizzi’s taste (our room had a Louis XIII bed); pure perfection in hospitality. Then straight on to Center Parcs
Monday Busy busy. Dave is adamant that foreign policy cannot be reduced to soundbites, so of course, as Jed explained, we need a range of soundbites to convey this. ‘We will give solid not slavish support to the US’; ‘We will not come up with grand schemes to remake the world’ (Nigel says this is
I was very naughty when young. I stole from my schoolmates’ pockets as they played games. I stole from Woolworth’s. And probably more places. As responsibility entered my maturing soul, I tried to make amends. I advertised for those at school whom I might have made poorer and paid back many times the amount to
When I told my husband I had been asked to write the Spectator diary by the editor he retorted, ‘Nepotism.’ ‘No darling,’ I explained, ‘not Boris’ (whose brother Joe is married to my husband’s niece) ‘the new editor of The Spectator.’ ‘Ummm,’ he said, ‘so how do you want to come across in the diary?’
Chelsea Post Office, situated on the corner of Sloane Square, is a regular meeting place for us pensioners as we draw our weekly pension, in cash. Sometimes the queue sneaks down the King’s Road, but the long wait gives us the opportunity to catch up on local gossip and concerns. The ‘persons’ behind the grille
I spent Sunday in the BBC TV studio in Arromanches through six hours of live coverage of the D-Day commemoration. It would never do to tell them this, but I would have done it for nothing. It is 30 years since I took part in a big outside broadcast. The cliché is true: it brings
I was once naive enough to ask the late Duke of Devonshire why he liked Eastbourne, and he replied with a self-deprecating shrug that one of the things he liked was that he owned it. The same was true of Heywood Hill, the Bookshop for the Quality. He owned that too, and was generous enough
I feel I’ve certainly seen England from every angle in the past three months while touring in Full Circle, and it has surprised me how gorgeous the English countryside still is, and how hideous the infrastructure of some of our cities can be. In France and Italy, most towns have some sort of cohesion in
Cannes A year ago this week I tried to sell my idea for a blockbuster movie to Sam Goldwyn Junior. It was 12 noon, at the Majestic Hotel. I picked up my briefcase and strode past the upturned packet of Paprika Pringles on the floor. You don’t mess around before this sort of meeting. You
Having once reviewed TV for a living, I obviously never watch the damn thing at all these days if I can help it. But like many males of my age and temperament, I was engrossed late last year by a series called Grumpy Old Men, in which celebrities railed in a futile but well-paid manner
My granddaughter was christened at the Brompton Oratory on Saturday. Although the day was muggy and storms had been forecast, I am sorry to say that there was no thunder and lightening. Like Hector Berlioz recalling the circumstances of his birth — ‘I came into the world quite naturally, unheralded by any of the signs
Washington Not since Randolph Churchill’s The Fight for the Tory Leadership has any book of political reportage caused as much of a stir on either side of the Atlantic as Bob Woodward’s latest bestseller Plan of Attack. In the last few days I have listened to detailed dissections of the gospel according to Woodward. I
As I lead a life of more or less untroubled serenity and I am in perfect health (except for a slight cough), it was unsettling to learn that I had cancer and that it looked inoperable. It wasn’t, thankfully, and a most delightful surgeon cut it out. Cancer is a strange disease and I am
It was our last day in Courchevel, and everyone was having a snowball fight by the lifts at 1850, when my friend Charlotte said in urgent tones, ‘You know you’ve been looking for Posh Spice?’ Too damn right I had. Le tout Courchevel had been hunting the maritally troubled superstar, who was rumoured to be
I gave up smoking 11 months ago. It had reached the point where I had come to regard eating as an inconvenient interruption to smoking. People keep asking me if I feel any better but I don’t really. I have a permanent cold, excessive catarrh, I experienced hay fever last summer for the first time,