This afternoon as I was walking up Queen’s Crescent, a BMW X5 with police markings drove slowly down the street, with police officers looking out of the windows as if searching for someone. The car stopped, then set off quickly with its lights flashing. A small cluster of men had come out of the betting […]
I just walked up Queen’s Crescent to buy a banana and post letters, as I usually do at five o’ clock, and on the way I met Bob, my neighbour. Bob is a rock and world music critic, and a TV news reporter, technically retired but still working now and then. He leads an interesting […]
Last night I was speaking to the men’s group at St Mary’s Church in Primrose Hill about earning my living as a writer. I took along some props, including my first front page story. I was proud of it at the time, though looking back I get far more pleasure from the strap, which I […]
‘I grew up on a farm. No one was into fashion and no one was vain,’ the model Rosie Huntington-Whitely says in a pull-quote illustrating her interview in my wife’s copy of Grazia. I grew up on a farm too, and remember fashion being very much part of the mix. My brother, who is a […]
This evening was the Debutantes party at Bloomsbury Publishing’s offices on Bedford Square, and I was invited because The Valley will be my Bloomsbury debut in April next year. I don’t go to many publishing parties, and often spend the first part of the evening feeling that I am not saying or doing things that […]