Diary

Monday Fraught morning. Drew the short straw and had to take Mrs Spelperson her camomile tea but couldn’t find her. Looked everywhere. Under the desk, in the filing cabinet. Nowhere. So I couldn’t tick the chart confirming that she had been checked on and given light refreshments. I expect she’s climbed out of the window

Venetia Thompson contends with a broken Blackberry, teeth-whitening kits and cyclists Last weekend I discovered what it is like to be a small furry animal in its burrow, when in an effort to catch up on some sleep and do some work, I had refused to go out and instead sat steadfast in my living-room. I

I co-own a rather jolly children’s shop on Ebury Street and my stock has recently expanded to include a Romanian tramp. I discovered him sleeping on my doorstep after returning to collect a laptop charger I’d left behind. As it was physically impossible to get into the shop without first crushing him, I found myself

The day after my arrival in Harare I attended Evensong at St Mary Magdalene’s Anglican church. The congregation was in a state of shock. Almost every church in Harare had been raided by riot police that morning. In some cases the police blocked worshippers from entering as they arrived, beating up those who tried to

Dennis Sewell on the state of Lebanon and the charm of Guto Harri My earliest childhood memory is of machine-gun rounds coming through the bedroom wall. There were no loud bangs — the cacophony is almost all at the shooter’s end. Incoming, each successive bullet breathed only the softest hiss, of a kind an exotic insect might

On Monday morning I am outwitted by my four-year-old daughter, who manages to leave for school in a light cotton dress on a phenomenally cold and wet spring day. That night I therefore take myself to Chelsea Town Hall for the launch of The Seven Secrets of Parenting: Or How to Achieve the Almost Impossible.

Vanity thy name is Nikki Bedi. I’ve just been for one of my biannual visits to my ‘derm’ Dr Nick Lowe. The Times recently called him Dr Botox. I’ve been his patient for 13 years; the first seven in Santa Monica, where my skin had begun to resemble a chamois leather. Years of sun worship

It’s Powell week. I am due to speak at the site of his infamous ‘rivers of blood’ speech on Sunday, a rather clever idea dreamed up by my colleagues at the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Kamal Ahmed and Patrick Diamond. I must admit I had initial reservations about the proposal. After all, I am

Monday Big panic. Some of our candidates in marginal seats have been ringing up asking why they can’t find any nice piccies of Dave standing next to a flag which they can use in their leaflets for St George’s Day. Jed says we’re to tell everyone that there are such pictures, they’ve just gone missing.

Monday Major pasta panic! Dispatched to Oxfordshire to help Sam find lasagne sheets for Dave’s Thinkers and Opinionators Supper this weekend which is in real danger of being cancelled for the first time in its history — due to food shortages! Isn’t this just the most damning indictment of Brown’s Britain? Emailed Jed a memo:

My dinner parties are an exercise in patience. People used to tell me how much money they’d made buying in Islington when they did. ‘Good for you,’ I’d say, hating them just a little. I’ve noticed that recently my friends have stopped telling me how much equity they’d managed to suck out and try to

Over the last 20 years, gentlemen’s clubs have had to pay at least a token deference to modernity — equal rights, health and safety, inclusiveness. And then there is St Moritz Tobogganing Club, a British club with its own rules. Located in the middle of the Swiss Alps, it makes one uncomplicated demand of its

Daphne Guinness on awards shows and the US elections  California is not the worst place in which to be stuck. In fact I love it! To view your world from a distance is interesting, hearing news slightly delayed, the anchors of life breaking until it is inevitable that your inner compass makes a paradigm shift. At

Mumbai A city where the children dash from car to car selling novels is the perfect place for a literary festival: on the way from the airport, snaking past shantytowns and catching my first glimpse of the Arabian Sea, I am offered The Kite Runner by street urchins knocking on the window of my taxi.