Diary – 15 April 2006

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?’ ‘Oh, you know,’ I said, ‘witty, clever, charming, likeable.’ ‘Ah’, he said, ‘better get someone else to write it, then.’ Of course, Matthew has every right to feel a little grumpy at the moment. He is a whip and a minister in the House of Lords and has been fielding dozens of calls a day from friends thinking what a wheeze it is to ask how much he loaned the government for his peerage. I could see it was all wearing a little thin when even our very smart bank manager couldn’t resist asking with a smile playing on his lips …and we were there to discuss our overdraft.

Six months ago I left a career in book publishing to run the William Morris office in London and become an agent. So here I sit, swamped by DVDs sent from our worldwide head of scripted TV. Parcels of them appear daily for me to deliver to my friend Ruthie Rogers: he is clearly in love with her — most people are. I asked Ruthie to come to dinner with us when he was over, and watched this brilliant, macho LA agent melt, captivated and entranced by Ruthie’s extensive knowledge of everything from the first to the last series of 24, Spooks, Life on Mars. In my 20 years of speaking to Ruthie three times a day, I have never spoken to her about what happened in the last episode of Lost. I tackled her about this in the next day’s early-morning phone call.