Next time I’m in a sauna I’m going to say: ‘It’s like a school sports hall on prize day in here.’ As the mothers fanned their faces with the programmes, one of the other fathers, Her Britannic Majesty’s Ambassador to Uruguay, leaned forward and whispered: ‘Rookie error, mate. Should have worn a white shirt.’ He
The frantic promotion of the proposed HS2 rail line — a white elephant in the making — is a reminder to those of us living outside London that we suffer from a disability: one so severe that it is worth spending £40 billion to shorten the journey to the capital by a few minutes. Our
I began my week with a trip to Bridlington, the closest seaside town to my childhood home. ‘Brid’, as it’s known to the locals, has a special British charm, comprising miles of unspoilt beach, beach huts, a pretty little harbour, fish-and-chip shops galore, rows of guest houses and The Expanse, a splendid old-fashioned hotel. The
Ah, good old Wimbledon: a fortnight of rhythmic ball thumping, ooh-ing at Federer’s forehand, aah-ing at Djoko the elastic athlete, and praying against common sense for good weather and British success. Some foreigners can be sniffy about Wimbledon’s particular charms — all that Union Jack patriotism, excitement over strawberries and cream and English eccentricity. ‘Grass is
The calendar of British summer events often involves a master class in surviving a deluge cheerfully, and recent years have tested that cheer almost to destruction. On Saturday it was the turn of the annual summer fair in Highgate, north London, home to Kate Moss and the grave of Karl Marx. The thin whisper of
I am trying very hard to understand why everyone is shocked — shocked! — by news that the US government helps itself to the massive data flows generated by Google, Facebook and Twitter. I have always assumed that something placed into an internet database is no more secret than something written in a letter. We
This was the best kind of week. It started with a three-hour road trip with my manager/surrogate father/shrink/bodyguard to Monmouth to record album no. 5. Glenn Gould (whom I worship with the fervour of a pre-teen Belieber) talked about the ‘womb-like security of the recording studio’. Which was why, in a somewhat pussy move, he
Too often, I go to South African theatre with a sense of foreboding: I anticipate something overwrought, tendentious, poorly acted and emotionally exploitative. So I arrived at the Hampstead Theatre last week without high expectations. The play, A Human Being Died That Night, was based on the book written by the psychologist Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, who
I was surprised to be told, by the editor of this magazine, that next week will mark the 20th anniversary of my standing down as Chancellor. The anniversary had entirely passed me by. I was asked this week why, if the economy was turning, George Osborne didn’t announce that he had spotted ‘green shoots’, as
I bet you remember your first fountain pen. Mine was a Conway Stewart with marbled barrel, I had it for starting Big School and I used to polish it. That trusty pen lasted until A-levels finally broke its back and after that I slipped down the primrose ballpoint path to slovenly writing. I never used
At evensong in Trinity College, Cambridge last Sunday, Ann Widdecombe was preaching. The pews were packed, with many in the congregation bagging seats half an hour before the service began. ‘Strictly Come Dancing fans,’ my neighbour whispered to me. They might have been a little disappointed when she didn’t tango down the nave past the
It was a perfect spring day in Hiroshima last week. I was there for my 25th wedding anniversary, which may sound odd, but my wife and I both work on Foyle’s War, which is now set in the atomic age, so it seemed appropriate. We strolled together around the A-Bomb Dome, the twisted, iconic ruin
One of the first world statesmen to send a message of sympathy to Boston after last week’s outrage was Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein. ‘Just watching news of the explosion in Boston,’ he tweeted, ‘Sympathy with people of that fine city.’ Mr Adams has every reason to think fondly of Boston. Throughout the troubles,
One of Lady Thatcher’s least publicised qualities, which raised her above any other politician I have known, was the complete absence of schadenfreude or triumphalism. In 1992, I was fortunate enough to be asked by Alistair McAlpine, Lady Thatcher’s former Treasurer and close friend, to spend election night with the recently deposed premier and her
Whenever feminists have complained in my presence about neglect of female high-achievers, other than rock singers and courtesans, I always like to mention brilliant Margaret Thatcher. It always makes them furious. They can’t bear to think of her as one of the most successful women of the 20th century. I had afternoon tea with her
We’ve discovered that we own an island. But dreams of independence and tax-havenry evaporate when we try to picnic there on Easter Sunday: we watch it submerge slowly beneath the incoming tide. It’s a barnacle-encrusted rock, about the size of a tennis court, just off the beach at Cambois, north of Blyth, which for some
After £4 million of taxpayer’s money and eight months of celebrity hand-wringing (bar a few notable and worthy exceptions), democracy has finally triumphed: Leveson has got the press where many MPs have long wanted it, i.e. strapped to a chair having its teeth pulled, without anaesthetic. What was it that Laurence Olivier wanted to know?
I learned on Wednesday that a row is exploding over freedom of the press … in Australia. Surely some mistake. Australia is refreshingly open and its newspapers are free to say, often rudely, whatever they like. In fact, they are among the world’s the most tightly regulated, standing 26th and 29th respectively in the Reporters
The week starts with a bang — literally — when my 1986 Land-Rover explodes, mid-gear change: CLANK and the exhaust pipe burps blue smoke. The old girl rolls to a halt. All we lack is the tinkle of a dislodged hubcap. I feel like Peter Cook’s Maj Digby Dawlish in the 1969 film Monte Carlo
My friend and colleague Roy Brown has just sent me the draft of a statement he will submit to the UN Human Rights Council this spring, on behalf of the International Humanist and Ethical Union. This is a group to which we both belong, which campaigns on freedom of thought and expression, women’s and children’s