Diary

Wednesday, 25th July 2007

I am registered as a voter in Ealing-Southall and have a problem...

In the Hamptons for the weekend with friends. I arrive on Saturday in time for a dinner dominated by splendid expat hacks. We sup beers by the jetty, eat by candlelight, discuss the Black trial and exchange great Scoop-like stories of foreign ventures. Terrific stuff, but I begin to gaze longingly at a hammock by the waterside. Their ten o’clock is my small hours, and after sinking further and further in my chair I leave a dinner party early for (I think) the first time.

Monday is my birthday. I have reached the unsatisfying age of 28. Away from my family in New York, I have arranged the very next best thing and go out for dinner with one of my favourite friends. Though only ten years older than me, Ayaan Hirsi Ali continues to refer

to me as some impossibly young child, still refusing to allow me to pay for meals until I am more advanced in years. We go to a terribly smart restaurant which pretends to have no room, so we loiter in a corner until another member of staff comes over, conceding that at least one of the empty tables might be going spare. We leave very late and hurtle back through the New York streets, high on laughter and friendship. Sometimes people complain to me that I seem too angry when I talk about Islamist terrorists. But this wonderful and brave woman is one of a number of friends who have to spend their lives under 24-hour protection because of what they think, say and write. If that didn’t anger me, then what would? I mind it — mind it deeply — and cannot pretend otherwise.

I have to be up early the next morning for the event that has brought me to America. I’m due to speak on a convention panel at the Hilton starting at 8.30 a.m.