I had quite a sobering lunch this week. It was with Bill Griffin, the former CEO of Kiss FM and now the strategy director of a big London ad agency. The main topic of conversation was the cultural impact of the recession and Barack Obama’s election. Would brands that are closely associated with the boom
I welcome Sir Jonathan Porritt’s advice about population control According to Sir Jonathan Porritt, the government’s green guru, couples who have more than two children are being ‘irresponsible’. ‘I am unapologetic about asking people to connect up their own responsibility for their total environmental footprint and how they decide to procreate,’ he says. He recommends
Racing isn’t just about speed and style. Sometimes it is all about sheer guts. On trials day at Cheltenham, with the tacky ground sucking the life out of every leg, with every extra pound on a horse’s back feeling double on the lung-busting uphill drive to the post, courage mattered. It was one of those
An unbiased review of the restaurant owned by my new employer at the Standard It is what is known on Fleet Street as a ‘marmalade dropper’ — a story so surprising that the piece of toast you are eating as you read it falls from your hand. No, I am not talking about the news
My heart goes out to the compilers of the 2009 Michelin Guide to Great Britain and Ireland which was published earlier this week. Not since 1929, the first year of the Great Depression, can an edition of the famous red handbook have been looked forward to less. In the current climate, the prospect of going
One of my favourite spectator sports is sitting, glass in hand, watching Mrs Oakley in the kitchen. There will be a stock reducing here, a pan with a few chopped leeks and onions there. A pinch of this, a sprinkle of that. A handful of coriander and a scrinch of lemon, a shlurp of rather
How a reality show gave me back my title as least popular person in America When I was asked if I wanted to appear as a judge on Top Chef, an American reality programme, I said ‘yes’ without giving it much thought. The producers assured me it was ‘the highest-rated food reality show on cable’,
Eos is a word I struggled with, presuming it to derive from the Greek prefix, eo-, meaning dawn or beginning, particularly in relation to plant or animal life. Then I discovered Eos was goddess of the dawn, beloved by (rather too) many Titans, though it could also refer to a bankrupt airline or the European
The recession is not a ‘much-needed reality check’ — it’s a source of great suffering Puritans love disasters. No sooner has some calamity befallen mankind than some hair-shirted scold emerges from his priest hole and starts wagging his finger. The message is always the same: ‘You are being punished for your immoral lifestyle.’ The latest
When, back in the mists of history, I proposed to Mrs Oakley (in the rather naff Caribbean cocktail bar of what seemed at the time to be a fashionable London venue patronised by a set we could not afford to join) I prefaced my question with a long preview about the perils of marrying a
My New Year advice to aspiring journalists: become accountants instead Like many people in the media, I’m bracing myself for an annus horribilis. I have multiple income streams — film, television, radio, books and journalism — and all have been decimated by the Credit Crunch. I’m not exaggerating when I say my earnings will fall
It is the closest I have ever come to dying. It was 22 December 1995 and I had flown to Chicago from New York to spend the weekend with my friend Matias before returning to London for Christmas. The day started well: Matias was having a fancy-dress party and in the course of helping him
The clatter of hooves in the stable yard, the smell of the work riders’ bacon butties drifting in the air. Warmly wrapped trainers and bloodstock agents scratching at their catalogues. Horses breezing in pairs down the Kempton straight in the misty early morning. When CNN sent me out last Friday to see what effect the
‘Daddy, there’s something I want to ask you,’ said Sasha, my five-year-old daughter, as she was eating her supper. ‘Yes darling?’ ‘Is Father Christmas real?’ This is a question that every parent will be asked sooner or later and my friends are divided about how you should respond. Children will eventually learn that the universe
In a recession, head for the mall where you can buy seven Crunchies for £1.49 I was awestruck. As a long-term resident of West London, I had been looking forward to my first glimpse of this emporium, but it was even better than I imagined. I simply had no idea shopping centres could be this
Eat your heart out, Stubbs. Wrong century, Sir Alfred Munnings. After Nicky Henderson’s Jack the Giant had won the Carey Group Handicap Steeplechase at Ascot last Saturday and stood in the winner’s enclosure quietly steaming with that unmistakeable gleam of achievement in his eye, his proud trainer revelled in his commanding physicality. ‘Isn’t he just
Classlessness means your five-year-old chanting ‘sheepshaggers’ on the terraces According to Ferdinand Mount, a revolution has taken place in upper-class manners in recent years. Where it was once socially acceptable to be openly snobbish, drawing attention to telltale signs that a person was ‘not quite our class, dear’ or ‘HMG’ (homemade gent), it is now
I’m the celebrity who told ITV there was too much Ant and Dec — get me out of here! Earlier this year I made a life-changing decision. I realised after I had made it that it had been simmering away, on the edge of my consciousness, for some months. But at the time it seemed
‘Look here, Sunshine,’ I remember Eric Morecambe responding to a raised eyebrow from André Previn about the comedian’s musical efforts. ‘I am playing the right notes, just maybe not in the right order.’ My tipping goes like that too. For the previous Flat season I suggested that William Haggas’s Conquest might ‘pop up at a
‘Wow, that’s brave,’ said John Kampfner, the former editor of the New Statesman. ‘I’d never do that.’ I had just told him I’d agreed to be on Have I Got News for You and, as soon as he said this, I began to have second thoughts. ‘Oh Christ. D’you think I’ve made a terrible mistake?’