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January 20th

Alfred Wainwright died today, in 1991. He wasted a lifetime on walking, but still never managed to get beyond the Lake District.

V.S. NAIPAUL

Whatever happened to fun? In the heady, far-off days of my youth, we certainly knew how to have fun! My grandmother, Edith, the seventh Marchioness of Londonderry, taught me how! She had always been intent on injecting gaiety into life!

Her charmed circle would gossip like mad, play silly games, flirt with each other, tell outrageous jokes, widdle down the stairwell, and drink copious quantities of the delicious pre-war Londonderry champagne!

She even enjoyed a close friendship with the Labour leader Ramsay MacDonald! ‘He was an old-fashioned socialist,’ she wrote in her memoirs. ‘He loved beautiful things, gorgeous pageantry, fine silverware, dressing up in resplendent uniforms, being waited on hand and foot, and taking the cream of the British aristocracy up the botty!’

Throughout my life, we couldn’t have had half so much fun without our full complement of servants, all of them the most tremendous characters!

The marvellous thing was how much they respected us! I’ll never forget what the inimitable Mr Chambers, Daddy’s bathroom butler, said after vigorously wiping Daddy’s behind after he had experienced a particularly severe dose of diarrhoea! He said, ‘It’s come up beautiful, sir – and may I add what a pleasure and a privilege it has been for me to attend to you today!’

Sadly, Mr Chambers shot himself the next day. It could have been the most frightful blow, but thankfully the vacancy was soon filled!

LADY ANNABEL GOLDSMITH

Cut a hole in a bedsheet. Put your head through it. Step into a washing machine. Ask your friend to switch it on. Watch the world spin round and round. Step out of the machine. Your bedsheet will still have a hole. Ask your maid to repair it. You are an artist. Yoko loves you.

YOKO ONO

January 21st

A great night out for Tony. A great night out for New Labour. And a great night out for Britain. Yup, it was the 1997 Brit Awards, that literally incredible celebration of the new explosion of British youth and talent. ‘I live in a house in a very big house in the countraaaay,’ sang Blur, and you felt your whole body rising up, and not just because it was nearly time to go.

All of us in New Labour felt it would be fantastic to forge an association with youth and optimism, so Donald Dewar was put in charge of booking a table way back in October. The eight of us – Gordon Brown, wearing his old flared jeans, the lovely Ken and Barbara Follett, Tony, me, Jack Straw (looking very casual in a cravat over a beige polo-neck), Margaret Beckett (ex-Steeleye Span, of course) and John Prescott (squeezed into his velvet loon pants) were lucky enough to share a table with the super young lads from Oasis.

At dinner, we were keen to find out what the youth of Britain really thinks about the major issues confronting this country. Over soup, Margaret, sitting next to Noel Gallagher, suggested we might harness the great energy of Britpop to help solve some of the problems facing us. Noel brought the natural verve of youth to his reply. ‘Piss off, toothy,’ he said, reaching for another can of lager.

‘Thanks, Noel. I certainly think that response gives us much to build on,’ enthused Tony. ‘Any other suggestions, lads?’

At that moment, the Oasis drummer removed Jack Straw’s specs and began to wiggle them round in the air with all the super high spirits of the young. Jack made it clear he was enjoying the joke tremendously by laughing for five to six seconds before saying, ‘Joke over, lads – joke over.’ But by this time the drummer had given them to the rhythm guitarist, who was now wearing them on his bottom.

It was left to John Prescott to break the ice. ‘Are New Labour’s plans for the renationalisation of our railways exciting much interest among the young?’ he asked.

‘Speak up, fatty!’ replied Liam Gallagher, and we all laughed appreciatively at his rough-and-ready Scouse wit while he amiably sprayed us all with a frothed-up can of Special Brew.

Tony has always been a terrific fan of pop music, and for much of the first session – by the exciting new band Blur – I noted he had his top set of teeth pressed over his bottom lip while his hands played along on his dummy guitar. Meanwhile, Jack Straw was busily trying to retrieve his spectacles, which by now had been passed by the rhythm guitarist of Oasis to the bass guitarist of Garbage, who had employed his lighter to bend them into some sort of abstract ‘mound’, reflecting the spiritual aspirations of the young.

‘I live in a house, in a very big house, in the countraaaay,’ sang Blur. I noticed that Margaret, having removed her straw hat with its lovely green ribbon, had got out her pocket calculator to work out how the aforementioned very big house in the country would be affected from a tax point of view under New Labour, if it was owner-occupied with a 50 per cent endowment mortgage, repayable over twenty-five years. ‘Best not tell him,’ she whispered to me, ‘but he’ll be 7 per cent worse off under New Labour.’

Next came Tony’s big moment. He was presenting the Lifetime Achievement award to David Bowie, a personal favourite. Tony was wearing his loose-cut Armani dark suit with a floral tie, but beneath it – and this is what viewers couldn’t see – he was kitted out in a multicoloured Aladdin Sane bodystocking, ready to meet his hero.

‘It’s been a great year of energy, youth, vitality, and great, great music,’ began Tony, ‘and believe me, we in New Labour draw terrific inspiration from your tremendous efforts.’ Sadly, the rest of his speech was drowned out for me by the organist from Screwball vomiting over Ken Follett’s double-breasted Armani suit.

PETER MANDELSON

January 22nd

To Buckingham Palace, to attend an investiture. Prince Philip greets me with his usual affectionate male banter. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he jests. ‘I thought I told them to keep you away!’

I roar with infectious laughter as he turns on his heel – but with perfect timing I catch him just as he reaches the door. ‘You are an irrepressible old character, sir!’ I congratulate him. ‘A national treasure, forsooth!’

At this point, the Prince raises a good-natured fist and socks me in the mouth.

‘Marvellous, sir!’ I enthuse, picking up my front teeth from the beautifully polished floor. ‘Have you ever heard my immortal anecdote about my meeting with Henry Cooper? Oh, but you MUST!’

GYLES BRANDRETH

January 23rd

Last night at dinner, I was placed next to the German Chancellor, Adolf Hitler.

The dinner consisted of a fine venison stew accompanied by potatoes dauphinoise. Adolf Hitler has a well-known temper, but I did not see it. Our talk revolved around a new musical in the West End, which he had not seen. Nor had I. I told him that I had been reliably informed by Sacheverell that it is quite marvellous, with colourful costumes, extravagant settings and a number of good tunes. He promised he will try to catch it if ever he manages to reach Britain. I noticed that he uses his napkin quite sparingly: unusual, I thought, for an Austrian.

CLARISSA EDEN

So Pete’s moved out he’s like so moved out at the end of the day he’s moved out tell me about it but I’m in a good place and my boobs are in a good place they’re really focused they’ve so talked it over, they work as a team say what you like they got respect for each other, I say to them let’s get round a table and talk it over if Pete doesn’t like them goin’ clubbin’ and havin’ a bit of fun well then that’s up to Pete at the end of the day it’s the children they’re concerned about their concern is for the children 110 per cent tell me about it so if they want to go out and have a bit of fun then I’ve got to be honest with you I’m not going to stop them.

KATIE PRICE

January 24th, 1925

My Dear Lady Cunard,

Thank you so much for that lovely stay last weekend. We both enjoyed ourselves very much. It was really very kind of you to have us.

I do hope my little ‘diversion’ on Saturday evening wasn’t too awfully inconvenient for you, and that your servants have managed to get most of the mud out of the carpets! From something you said –or was it just a look? – I came away thinking that I may, in your eyes, have done something ‘wrong’. If so, I can only apologise, but what is a man if he cannot seize the moment to strip off all his loathsome lily-livered clothes and wrestle his fellow man naked, strong, tumultuous, full of the very urge of life that lies within them, and all in a deep, soft, dirty – real dirty – and splodgesome sea of mud.

You may argue – in your typically grey, bourgeois, corrupt, stinking, decaying way – that I had no ‘right’ to order your gardeners to load ten, eleven, twelve wheelbarrows high with sludge from the ditches, wheel them into the blue drawing room and offload them in the area in front of the blazing fire. And you may also argue –loudmouthed bitch – that I could at least have rolled up your priceless carpet – symbol of all that is petty and extravagant and worthless in this age – and placed it to one side.

Away with your arguments! An end to your grey, sniffy, hoity-toity objections! When I rolled with your stable lad in the mud, as we pummelled each other with our fists and each felt the brute within and the mud without, I at last felt free and open and alive and triumphant and, yes, pure! How dare you suggest that mud-wrestling between two men should be confined to the outdoors, should be shunted away into the barns and the brooks, should be well away from all the upholstery and fine furnishings. There is nothing dirty in mud! This pervasive and wretched belief in household cleanliness is the sign of a decrepit age! There is no good carpet, no good sofa, that has not been splattered with the mud thrown off as two or more bold and muscle-bound men come a-grappling! Your priggish mud-hatred fills my blood with contempt.

Finally, once again, many thanks for the most marvellous stay. You made us feel so ‘at home’. We both came home greatly refreshed, and full of wonderful memories of a really terrific weekend.

Yours ever,

David

D.H. LAWRENCE,LETTER TO LADY CUNARD

I spoke to TB and started drafting resignation letters. I felt desperately sorry for Peter Mandelson. He had clearly been crying, and needed my support.

I went over to him, said this is all absolutely dreadful but we just have to get through it. I put one arm around his shoulder, and with the other I eased the knife, as gently as I could, between his shoul-derblades. By this time, he was writhing in pain, but I assured him that I would be strong for him, and do everything physically possible to ease his passing.

He kept saying why, why, why, but I reassured him that it just had to be done. As the tears cascaded down his cheeks, I sat alongside him and comforted him and read him his farewell resignation letter, and I gripped his shoulder and told him he had to be strong and then I gave it one last thrust. ‘You don’t deserve this, Peter, you really don’t, you’re one of the greatest ministers this country ever had,’ I said.

Bumped into JP on the way home, and he congratulated me on a very smooth operation. We agreed that Mandelson’s no better than a cartload of bollocks and we’re 100 per cent better off without him.

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL

January 25th

To Cuba. Introduced to President Castro. No oil painting. Very full of himself. Absurd bushy beard, army ‘fatigues’, regional accent (Welsh?). Inquire whether he is a Derbyshire Castro. ‘I myself am a regular at Chatsworth,’ I add, helpfully. He fails to take the bait. Instead, he drones on about the Missile Crisis. Missile Crisis this, Missile Crisis that. Typically lower class, living from crisis to crisis. So dreadfully panicky.

JAMES LEES-MILNE

PHILIP PULLMAN: I don’t like the word ‘God’, never have done, never will do. It’s meaningless, for the simple reason that God doesn’t exist.

DR ROWAN WILLIAMS: Well, Philip, that’s a fascinating point. I think you’ve hit on something very very profound there, indeed something very meaningful, in a spiritual way.

PHILIP PULLMAN: Christianity is on a hiding to nothing, because Jesus was not the son of God.

DR ROWAN WILLIAMS: That’s marvellously bold, Philip, and I salute you for it! It takes a creative artist of your tremendous powers of observation to say something so challenging and stimulating for the rest of us! But would you mind awfully if I took you up on something you said just now about Jesus?

PHILIP PULLMAN: As you know, I’m a very busy man, but not too busy to spare you a moment or two, Rowan. Fire away!

DR ROWAN WILLIAMS: You said something to the effect that Jesus was not the son of God, and also that – do please correct me if I’m wrong! –Christianity is on ‘a hiding to nothing…’

PHILIP PULLMAN: Absolutely.

DR ROWAN WILLIAMS: Well, that’s a wonderful phrase, tremendously powerful. ‘A hiding to nothing’. You at your impressive best! For me, it’s a phrase that carries real emotional power. And of course, in a very real sense, the Christian pursuit of God – or whatever we want to call him! –is indeed a pursuit of nothing, in the sense that the divinity, or what-have-you, is immaterial and not of this earth. So the expression ‘a hiding to nothing’ very much sums up what the Christian Church should be aiming for. I think we’re entirely at one on that, I must say.

PHILIP PULLMAN: Rowan, in my new book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, which you have so kindly agreed to help me publicise –

DR ROWAN WILLIAMS: Oh, it was the very least I could do…

PHILIP PULLMAN:…Very kind, nevertheless. In my new book, I attempt to show organised religion as a source of falsehood and wickedness. As a theologian, would you go along with this?

DR ROWAN WILLIAMS: Well, of course, it’s a fascinating topic for conjecture, tremendously rich and intriguing, but, no, as the leader of an organised religion, on the whole I’m not sure I entirely buy into that. Frankly, I can see problems with it. Put it this way, Philip: it gives me pause.

PHILIP PULLMAN: Really, Rowan – it’s so easy to be dismissive!

DR ROWAN WILLIAMS: I hope I wasn’t dismissive. Perhaps I was, and if so, I can only apologise.

PHILIP PULLMAN: Apology accepted. So I think we can both agree that the established Church is a source of falsehood and wickedness. We have plenty of common ground.

DR ROWAN WILLIAMS: Well, though it’s a profoundly interesting point, perhaps I wouldn’t want to go quite as far as…

PHILIP PULLMAN: So we’re entirely at one on that.

DR ROWAN WILLIAMS: I’ve always considered ‘at one’ an extraordinarily helpful phrase, and I must say it thrills me deeply to hear you use it, Philip. It reinforces my sense that, for all our surface differences, the two of us are really thinking along the same lines. Very much so.

PHILIP PULLMAN: And another point I make in my book is that any head of an organised religion is likely to torture and kill anyone who disagrees with him.

DR ROWAN WILLIAMS: That’s a very striking point, Philip, though we may have one or two minor points of difference on the detail – for instance, as Archbishop of Canterbury, I would never seriously consider torturing or killing anyone just because they disagree with me, whatever we may mean by ‘disagree’! But I think we are united in our search for human value, and that’s the most important thing.

PHILIP PULLMAN: You say you won’t torture or kill those of us who have the temerity to disagree with you! Well, if I’ve extracted that promise from you today, Rowan, then our discussion won’t have been a complete waste of time! Now, I’ve got to rush to another speaking engagement, so I must go. Some of us have work to do! If you could just carry my bags to the taxi, Rowan, there’s a good fellow.

DR ROWAN WILLIAMS: I’m frankly overwhelmed that a great author such as yourself thinks of me as a good fellow, Philip!

PHILIP PULLMAN: That’s very literal of you, Rowan. Hurry up, now! Chip-chop!

PHILIP PULLMAN IN CONVERSATION WITHDR ROWAN WILLIAMS

January 26th

Have found a way of knotting my necktie using an extraordinary little gadget on my Swiss Army penknife. Its recommended use in the accompanying pamphlet is for taking the stones out of horses’ hooves, but they keep these other uses quiet, don’t they, just in case the ordinary decent people get to hear of them. Whereas tying my necktie used to take, ooh, a minute, with this handy gadget it can now take over fifteen minutes. I can’t recommend it highly enough. Of course, the minute word gets out about it, it’ll be dynamite, there’ll be the most massive international cover-up involving all the powers the state has at its disposal. But that’s what you’d expect of the feudal hierarchy under which we are forced to live, isn’t it? Either that, or they make one out to be potty!

Unpeel a banana fruit and eat it, first throwing away the mushy white bit inside.

TONY BENN

I’m mad for the economic downturn! Mad for it! Mass unemployment is so sexy, hm? When the economic graph swoops down like that, like a curve from Fragonard, I think it is so gorgeous, so trendy! My new evening-wear range for Chanel is a wonderful homage to that curve, with all my clothes with downturns off the shoulders in dark, dark greys and delicious blacks.

KARL LAGERFELD

January 27th

On this day many, many years ago, I was introduced to Mr Gandhi at a party of Diana Cooper’s.

I was perfectly frank. I informed him there was nothing very clever about parading around in a loincloth drinking one’s own urine and generally acting the giddy goat.

As a result, he fell head over heels in love with me.

Men love to be told the truth, even when painful.

BARBARA CARTLAND

January 28th

I learn from the wireless that the American space ‘shuttle’ (horrid word) Challenger has exploded seconds after lift-off. Serves them jolly well right. When will these tenth-raters learn to place me in charge of their operations? Instead, they leave it to nincompoops and incompetents. Of course, these sissies at Mission Control are interested only in themselves. Their instinct is to engineer matters in such a way that their achievements catch up – surpass, perchance! – my own. What nonsense! Do they not realise that I am widely regarded as the foremost expert in the world on the vast majority of subjects? In a huff, they conceitedly disregard me and ‘blast off’ without so much as a by-your-leave. And look what happens! Will they never learn?

A.L. ROWSE

It’s only this that motivates me to write about my father at all: this vexed question of masculinity, of what it is to be a man. An unutterably grey nimbus of brutality surrounded my parents. They fought to the death, brandishing decency, the nuclear weapon of the suburban bourgeoisie. On the crap terrace of our suburban semi, my mother would coldheartedly ask my father how his day had been. Shielding the blow, he would reply, viciously, that it had been fine – and with a final savage swipe he would then tell her to put her legs up, before threatening her with a ‘nice’ cup of tea. The two of them were a schizophrenic hermaphrodite, their marriage a screaming Procrustes, always stretched to breaking point – and beyond. I once overheard my mother say, ‘How about a nice biscuit then, dear?’ It was a dubiously interrogatory phrase designed to force upon the prostrate victim an all-out assault, or attack, that could be met only with the tiny porous shit-brown shield of the absent HobNob. When my father replied, ‘Mmm…lovely,’ I knew then that he had allowed his manhood to wither into a nothingness as weary, diminished and yet somehow sublimely totemic as a small mollusc stamped upon by an elephant before being subdivided with a pair of compasses by an aberrant alge-braitician who is nursing a rare neurotic compulsive disorder that forces him to make things very small, or minuscule.

WILL SELF