London

It was quite fun being named as the new writer of 007 — although actually I’d make a lousy spy. As my family knows, I’m hopeless at keeping secrets and I’ve found it almost impossible hanging on to this one for the past few months. Even now I’m forbidden to reveal the title, the story, the date it takes place or any of the characters… and I’ll probably get into trouble even for writing this. Believe me, Orion Books and their legal department are more sinister than Smersh. In fact I did quite well and only dropped one clue to someone who follows me on Twitter. He asked me what

From The Spectator, 10 October 1914: American visitors have been surprised at the apparent absence of emotion in England at such a crisis as the present. They can see, they say, no signs that we realize the tremendous nature of the points at issue. The English people, they think, are not taking things seriously. Yet all the time there are signs, if they knew where to look for them, that we are moved as we have never been moved before. “If we let anybody, even our nearest and dearest, know what we feel, we may be unmanned. We must keep a tight hold, and especially on ourselves, or we may lose control.”

Last Tuesday I tried to sign up to a new life. My wife and I argued, slightly. ‘I don’t think this will work!’ she laughs, and I reply feebly: ‘But babe, it’s the future.’ (My use of the word ‘babe’ is like a label on the conversation — WARNING: HAVING ARGUMENT WHICH I AM ABOUT TO LOSE). She protests that she needs a car for ferrying kids and clearing the allotment and occasional 5.30 a.m. starts at work, and I produce a small piece of plastic and wave it, like Neville Chamberlain. This is my trump card. I have signed up to Zipcar. With this rectangle I can unlock a hire car

Breaking the unions Sir: By the time this letter appears we shall know whether the land of my birth has separated from the land of my life. I hope not. But is there not an uncanny parallel between the rise of the Scottish desire to quit England and the English desire to quit Europe? The same arguments about control from a city outside the nation; about elites and technocrats dictating to and imposing upon a sturdy independent people; the belief that outside the union (with England, with European partners) a radiant future beckons; endless columns, pamphlets and books explaining why rule from London/Brussels must be overthrown; and a charismatic, one-liner

You know, those mysterious huts that allow entry only to cab drivers? I used to fancy they were cover for a network of underground bunkers where cackling taxi drivers plotted world domination and new ways to fuck up traffic at the Nag’s Head. One day, I vowed, the truth would be outed. This was how I ended up attending a mass sing-along at the cabbies’ hut in Russell Square. It was part of something called the ‘Cabbies’ Shelter Project’, organised by some very nice people who’d obviously been wondering the same thing. No subterranean tunnels were in evidence. Just a kitchenette, the all-pervasive stench of bacon fat and a cabbie called Mark Bird

From The Spectator, 5 September 1914: LONDON changes day by day, and the London of the first few days of the war lies far in the past, distant for all of us by differently measured aeons of time. The trainloads of troops, the horses, the hurry, the altered railway service, the packed streets, the questioning crowds, the visible stress and strain of meeting the new conditions and the new standards of the world—these are gone. London instead is very quiet, and exceedingly hard at work. The noise of preparation has ceased, and now the silence that has followed has a quality of its own. There is a new sound in

At least every other time a ticket inspector boards a train or bus I’m on, I pretend I can’t find my ticket or Oyster card. I then miraculously find it at the very last second before my stop. Why? Pure revenge. I hate this nasty group of sadistic jobsworths and, having been stung by them myself, take great pleasure in distracting them for long enough to allow those who are fare dodging to get away without being spotted. The smugness of ticket inspectors becomes unbearable in the face of the chronically bad service on London transport. My blood boils when I spot a bank of uniformed inspectors, flanked by police officers, when disembarking