New York My friend Tom Fleming, editor-in-chief of Chronicles, and a polymath who doesn’t tolerate fools or knaves, recently wrote that when he’s described as a journalist, he takes it as an insult. ‘Journalists are to writers what kept women are to wives …’ The American version of Paul Johnson went on to say that
‘Tis the season to be self-deprecating. Or even more self-deprecating than during the rest of the year. The traditional British custom of laughing while others tell insulting stories about you, running yourself down, making yourself look a perfect ass, and being the butt of practical jokes, while keeping a fixed grin on your face, really
‘Is having personal demons like having a personal trainer?’ asked my husband, casting aside a newspaper magazine to the peril of his glass of whisky. (It survived, briefly.) He might well ask, for these ‘personal demons’ have been having quite an outing in the newspapers recently. Anne Diamond, according to a so-called friend quoted in
