Category: “Diaries”

I am trying my best to get used to this ebook thing, having ‘a book out’ but with nothing to give to friends, nothing to sign for people who ‘buy’ it, no physical product to point to as you talk about it. So last night, when I was talking about diaries with fellow diarist and [...]

A reminder, as we get nearer Christmas, of the signed books arrangement I have with  Waterstone’s in Hampstead High Street, not far from where I live … anyone who wants a signed copy of my diaries can order them via them, and I will pop up to the shop every now and then and sign [...]

Greetings from Vienna airport where I am waiting for a plane, worrying about the unseasonal heat, getting irritated by a couple who are kissing their dog like it is a baby, and trying to find a single reference to the Tory Party conference in the Financial Times. It is the Europe edition, so unsurprisingly leads [...]

I had really wanted to see the ‘My Resignation’ documentary on BBC4 last night. It is an interesting theme and the people making it seemed a cut above your average instant docmaker. Having interviewed me on a rainy day like today, they were also polite enough to tell me when the programme was on. But [...]

I get a fair few requests on here, via email, twitter and Facebook, for signed copies of my books. As some of you know, I always try to sort things out for people, but I think it is time I had a proper system for this. So step forward a very nice man called Colin [...]

A break from politics and the press today, and instead three of my other interests – football, mental illness and plugging books. No, not my own books, though these are available here here here here here and the latest one, Power and Responsibility, here. Oh, and you can pre-order the next one, The Burden of [...]

It must say something for the media’s belief in the public’s insatiable diet for Royal stories that for two volumes running, The Guardian has led its serialisation of my diaries on Royal stories. With volume 2, Power and the People, it was the arrangements for Princess Diana’s funeral, and the vexed issue of whether the [...]

Not speaking a word of Mandarin, I find it hard to work out exactly how hacked off Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was with David Cameron’s stance on human rights yesterday. ‘Finger-pointing’ is certainly not an everyday diplomatic word, but I just have to think of the foreign languages I do know to realise how difficult [...]

A long time ago a man named Christopher Ward became a very important person in my life. I have often thought that if my meeting with him 30-odd years ago had not gone so well, I might never have become a Daily Mirror trainee journalist, and so I might never have met Fiona. If I [...]

By far the most significant UK political event yesterday was the speech by outgoing US Defence Secretary Robert Gates. His warning to European allies that they risked military irrelevance, and that the US could not perpetually be relied upon to fund European security was blunt and timely. Of the many surprises about the way the [...]