Diary – 23 April 2015

Lunch with the man who hanged Saddam. My irrepressible old Baghdad friend Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Ealing neurologist turned Iraqi national security adviser, is on top form. This may not be unrelated to the news that the noose with which he hanged Saddam is up for auction. Interested buyers are said to include Kuwaiti businessmen, an Israeli family, a bank and an Iranian religious organisation. Mischievous tales are circulating about an offer of $7 million being rejected. Hearing Rubaie relive Saddam’s execution reminded me of the late Sir Wilfred Thesiger recalling how he shot up a tent full of sleeping Germans during the Allied campaigns in North Africa. ‘It felt like murder,’ he said, and you knew he rather liked it.

Never mind the general election. A much more interesting contest is about to kick off in SW7. Not since the Royal Geographical Society was founded in 1830, as far as we can tell, has the presidency been contested. It’s time to blow away the cobwebs. Seven fellows have nominated Sir Ranulph Fiennes, ‘greatest living explorer’ (Guinness World Records): Sir Chris Bonington; Joanna Lumley; the mountaineer Rebecca Stephens; Professor Julian Dowdeswell, director of the Scott Polar Research Institute; Christopher Foyle of Foyles bookshop fame; and the travel writer Alistair Carr. I am thrilled to be a minnow among such great fish. We think Ran would be the perfect president. A hugely inspirational figure, he is an astonishingly successful fundraiser, a prolific author and a formidable communicator. As Joanna Lumley wrote in her nomination letter, he will ‘refresh parts of the society others cannot reach’. Ballot papers will soon be landing on the doormats of the society’s 11,000 fellows. Whoever wins, the victory is the election. Let democracy reign at 1 Kensington Gore! Vote Ran.

To Lancaster House as a guest of honour of His Highness Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi, ruler of Sharjah.