At the age of 25, the poet and critic William Ernest Henley lay in hospital suffering from an illness that had kept him bedridden for three years. He had been diagnosed with tuberculosis of the bone at the age of 12 and his left foot was amputated just below the knee. He’d just been told
As readers of this column will know, I’ve spent the last year leading the efforts of a 250-strong group of local parents to start a new state secondary school in west London. One of the toughest things about this crusade is constantly having to bite my tongue. As a journalist, I used to delight in
Advice should always be received cautiously. I have in mind the two hunters in the American woods. One fell to the ground, his eyes rolling in his head. His companion called the emergency services by cellphone: ‘I think my friend is dead. What do I do?’ The operator cautiously urged him, ‘Now, sir, let’s stay
I watched Shadowlands again the other day, Richard Attenborough’s film about C.S. Lewis’s relationship with Joy Gresham, and was struck by one scene in particular. Anthony Hopkins is sitting beside the hospital bed of Debra Winger when suddenly she takes a turn for the worse. He leaps from his chair and runs out into the
It was one of those moments when a clunking great pile-driver comes up and thuds straight into your duodenum. I can weave through the form for a 24-runner handicap at the sputtering fag end of the season. I can summon the maths to cope with a series of cross doubles at, say, 13–8, 11–4 and,
The decision of Britain’s most notorious anonymous sex blogger to reveal her identify came as a great relief. It finally puts paid to the suspicion that Belle de Jour c’est moi. The first time my name was linked with the site was in a Mail on Sunday article in 2004 entitled: ‘Who does Belle the
I was slightly alarmed by the news that Harrow Council is recruiting 2,000 residents to join a network of ‘Neighbourhood Champions’. Their job will be to keep an eye out for evidence of graffiti, fly-tipping, littering and excessive noise, posting tip-offs on an anonymous website. What if the scheme is successful and other councils follow
How can Flat racing keep its public enthused when the moment a superstar emerges he is whisked away to other duties? Winning the 2000 Guineas, the Derby, the Coral Eclipse, the Juddmonte International, the Irish Champion Stakes and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Sea The Stars gave us a glorious summer. But at only
I’m writing this having just flown back from Jamaica on the red eye (no pun intended). I feel a little shell-shocked, but not because I was up all night trying to stop my two-year-old son from running up and down the aisle screaming ‘Bollocks’. Rather, it’s because my wife and I spent our last evening
Americans taking offence on behalf of poor ‘victimised’ foreigners is offensive — to me Oh dear. I may have to write a book called How to Lose More Friends and Alienate More People. In a recent episode of Top Chef, the American cooking show I appear on, I complained about the other judges’ insistence on
It takes a lot to keep me away from Newmarket’s Champions’ Day meeting but the prospect of an hour on stage at Cheltenham’s Literary Festival with Ruby Walsh and Paul Nicholls talking about Paul’s autobiography Lucky Break (Orion, £20) was lure enough. The champion trainer’s careers master might have been surprised to find the ever-reluctant
As luck would have it, the opening gala of the London Film Festival usually coincides with my birthday, and this year was no exception. My wife and I put on our best evening clothes and set off on what promised to be a great night out: a movie premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square followed
For the past three months I have been reviewing films for the Times and it has been quite an eye-opener. Before embarking on the job, I subscribed to the general view that cinema is not what it used to be. With the exception of a brief renaissance in the early 1970s, the art form has
For followers of every sport there are trigger words, often in pairs, which immediately bring great moments to life. ‘The Thriller in Manila’, Muhammad Ali’s third fight against Joe Frazier, probably does it for boxing. Any bracketing of ‘Coe and Ovett’ brings back famous finishes for athletics fans. No true cricket supporter can hear mention
Don’t be misled by their Bullingdon days: Boris and Dave are masters of re-invention Last night, More4 broadcast a 90-minute drama-doc called When Boris Met Dave that I helped to make. It documents their Eton and Oxford years and I hope they saw it — or, at least, recorded it on Sky Plus — because the impression
I used to take abuse in print and dish it out, but now I’ve become more squeamish A few weeks ago I appeared on the Today programme opposite David Denby, the veteran American film critic. He is the author of a book called Snark in which he takes issue with the nasty, personal tone that
Watch young jockey William Buick in the parade ring tipping his cap politely to owners and he looks too slight to be driving home hefty old handicappers. The pink choirboy cheeks have ladies wanting to pick up the 20-year-old and cuddle him. But like other top riders who have had those good manners and angelic
America’s superpower status is the flip side of its massive inferiority complex ‘You’re bringing a book?’ That was the reaction of Tom Colicchio, one of my fellow judges on an American reality show, when I clambered into the limousine taking us to the Emmys last Sunday. The programme in question, Top Chef, had been nominated
I have often toyed with the idea of writing a book called What They Don’t Teach You at the Elephant and Castle Journalism School. Under such headings as ‘How to Fiddle Your Expenses’, it would contain the kind of information that is usually only available in the saloon bar of the White Swan, the legendary
Should we cheer him or shun him? There was nothing special about the race on Wolverhampton’s all-weather track last Friday night, a 12-furlong handicap won by Paul Howling’s Our Kes, nothing special except for the fact that the jockey on board had ridden his last winner in Britain back in July 2006, at which point