Diary – Monday 27 February 1995

One man who knows precisely what is on his walls, however, is the Prime Minister. He has been busy installing David Hockneys and the like on the walls of 10 Downing Street, formerly the backdrop for more traditional 18th- and 19th-century art. He has not replaced the Turners and Constables favoured by Margaret Thatcher so much as discreetly hung them elsewhere. “It’s to show his support of modern art,” says a spokesman.

Presumably that does not apply to the portrait of the great cricketer, WG Grace. “As soon as he arrived here, the Prime Minister specifically asked for a portrait of Grace to be added to the Downing Street collection,” says the spokesman, before adding, “but I’m not entirely sure where it hangs.” Bedroom, perhaps?

A number of my City friends are congratulating themselves on leaving Barings before the disastrous events of the weekend. One friend, it turns out, left only days ago. But I, too, count myself lucky. Three years ago, for some unfathomable reason, I got down to the final eight for two or three graduate places and endured a whole day of interviews at the bank’s Bishopsgate premises. Who knows? Perhaps they might have been rash enough to offer me a job.

But I was saved, eventually, by the vice-chairman, Andrew Tuckey. He strode into my interview room, took one look at me and barked: “You don’t really want to be an investment banker, do you?” “No,” I replied, feelingly. If only, my friends sighed at the weekend, he’d said the same to Nicholas Leeson.

In the very hour that the country’s grandest universities withdrew their affiliation from their eponymous Pall Mall club, the Oxford & Cambridge, members of the University Women’s Club were enjoying their monthly club dinner.

Talk of sexual equality was not on the menu, however. Instead, Lady Longford, the octogenarian biographer, kept the guests entertained with a yarn about how she once nearly set Windsor Castle on fire (well before the palce actually went up in flames).

“I was writing my biography of Queen Victoria,” she explained, “and I was copying out certain documents in the castle by hand when I learnt that you were allowed to bring in tape recorders. So the next day I brought mine in and suddenly there was this terrible smell. A line of smoke started coming out of the machine. I had to unplug it immediately.”

Lady Longford went on to display an impressive knowledge of matters electrical. “You see, the electrical system at Windsor was still on direct current, but my tape machine ran on alternating current. No wonder there was some smoke,” she explained with a grin.

Speaking of Oxford and Cambridge, I ran into Norman Stone, the notoriously right-wing Oxford historian, last week, and found him complaining bitterly about the proposed removal of the Oxbridge entrance exam. “I don’t know how we’re supposed to test anyone’s calibre,” he moaned. But then, it seemed, an idea came to him. “I know,” he said, eyes glinting mischievously, “what about a new course to stretch the students a bit? How about Totalitarian Women of our Time?” Now who could he possibly have had in mind?

One unpleasant side-effect of the Irish peace process is, of course, the sacking of the various actors who used to do the voice-over for Gerry Adams for British television. One of the main ones was Aiden McCann, a 34-year-old from Belfast, who has already found himself another role – as Charles Dickens.

“The main similarity is that they both have beards, moustaches and an obsession with combing their hair,” he says of his role in Stuffed Shirts & Marionettes, a play about Ellen Ternan, Dickens’s lover, which opens shortly at Croydon’s Warehouse Theatre. Doing Gerry Adams, he admits, was somewhat easier. “Adams sounds just like my father,” he says, “so it was simple for me to copy the “nars and thars” (nows and theres, of course.)

“But there is,” he continues, “a bigger difference still between Adams and Dickens. The latter would use 800 words to say something when the former would use one.”

Jim Dowd, Labour MP for Lewisham West, will not be jumping into his black tie again in a hurry. He recently attended a black-tie reception at Grosvenor House, and on returning to the Commons, found he did not have time to change into his suit for a reception for the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Marching in, he was somewhat taken aback when his fellow Labour MP Tony Banks introduced him to the IFAW head, Brian Davies, jokingly, as a waiter. Still, he let it rest – until, that is, Davies turned round and in all seriousness asked him how long he had been working in the Strangers’ Restaurant.

Tonight sees the opening of the much-hyped new production of Hamlet, starring Ralph Fiennes and Tara Fitzgerald. The performance ought really to put its venue, the Hackney Empire, firmly on the map of London theatreland at long last, but the administrative staff there are not optimistic. They blame the AA, which has pointed the way to the venue from the city with one of those natty little yellow signposts, but have omitted the theatre’s name and written merely: Hackney Hamlet. Alas, poor Empire.

Diary – Monday 20 February 1995

The celebratory party following last week’s installation of Oscar Wilde at Poets’ Corner is likely to have long-term beneficial effects for at least one of the party goers, long after the post-prandial chit- chat has died down. Richard Ingrams, the musical editor of the Oldie magazine, is to have one of his lifetime ambitions fulfilled. His Jimmy Saville appeared in the form of Martin Neary, the Westminster Abbey organist, who, after a few minutes of obligatory small talk, promised him a spin on the Abbey’s organ in July. Ingrams, who plays the organ in his local church in Berkshire and whose dedication to the instrument is described by friends as “fanatical”, is said to be ecstatic.

That Madonna should have exerted so much effort to come over here for last night’s Brit Awards surely signals only one thing: that her career is in the doldrums. She was once so revered that the only Brit to gain access to her was the former newspaper editor Andrew Neil, who happily gave up his day job to sit crooning at her feet, Hello!-style, for a couple of weeks. But that’s all over now. Instead, we hear about how much her various bits of clothing fetch in American auctions, how she is reduced to modelling for Versace and how she now gives interviews galore to tacky magazines. There’s no new book, no film and no best-selling album. If only the same could be said for Andrew Neil …

Brian Sewell, the art critic who became an overnight celebrity last year after publication of a letter signed by 25 art bigwigs calling for his resignation, is upset again. Zwemmer, Britain’s leading group of art bookshops, is not stocking his latest book, The Reviews that Caused The Rumpus and Other Pieces. Sewell, I hear, suspects censorship. However, when I rang the Litchfield Street branch of Zwemmer, someone very charmingly told me it was merely out of stock. Strange, though, that a bookish local swears he’s never seen it on the shelves there …

Last week I met a miracle man: Paul Sherwood, a doctor specialising in “physical medicine” whom Michael Caine, Roger Moore and Biddy Cash, wife of the Tory Euro-sceptic Bill, all swear cured them of back pain after years of failure at others’ hands. So what’s so special about Dr Sherwood?

“I recommend people not to wear too many clothes,” he says, deadpan, “and in my latest book, Asthma and Beyond, I recommend that we all eat food after its sell-by date. The body needs a bit of bacteria, you see.”

Dr Sherwood proceeds to tell me what happens to people who do not take his advice – a famous example being the actor Peter Sellers. “I’d already cured him once … but then didn’t see him for a while,” he explains. “Later I took one look and told him that unless he did as I told him he would be dead within 12 months. He didn’t, and he was.” Suffice to say, it was short shirtsleeves for me at the weekend … but the mouldy chicken breast putrifying at the back of the fridge went straight into the dustbin.

I am delighted to be able to solve a mystery that has been puzzling Serena Sutcliffe, head of wine at Sotheby’s. She has been perturbed by the complete inactivity of the security beagle at JFK Airport, New York.

“I wouldn’t want to get the dog into trouble,” said the solicitous Ms Sutcliffe, “but I don’t understand it at all. Every time I pass it just walks around wagging its tail, taking no notice of anything. Frankly, I could do a better job of sniffing out drugs myself.”

In the interests of international security, I called JFK. “Ah, the beagle,” a spokeswoman giggled. “Yes, it’s a common misconception – she’s not actually used for sniffing out drugs but for sniffing out vegetables.”

Latest backstage whisper at the Royal Opera House: flu jabs are to become compulsory following the dire depletion of the cast of Der Rosenkavalier. No sooner did a spokesman come on stage last week to declare jubilantly to the audience that for the first time the opera would be sung as cast, than a day later Aage Haugland, the bass singing Baron Ochs, fell ill.

A point of contention among the ailing opera crew, however, is why the ballet lot should remain fit and healthy. Hopes were raised momentarily when the principal dancer Jonathan Cope withdrew from a performance of Romeo and Juliet, only to be dashed when they were told the damage was muscular.

There were twitching lips at the What the Papers Say awards on Friday when the Scoop of the Year was awarded to the Sunday Times Insight team for their cash-for-questions revelation. Why? Because all those who worked on that story (which, if you remember, caused a certain amount of moral outrage since some of the journalists had disguised themselves as businessmen) have been “relocated” to other parts of the paper. Maurice Chittenden, who went up to receive the award, was not given an opportunity to speak on account of television timing difficulties. Any thoughts, I asked him, as to what he would have said, given the chance? “No,” he replied. It must be that he doesn’t want to be “relocated” again.

Last week’s burglary at the Department of Transport did not cause anything like the internal stir it might have done, primarily because tongues there are wagging over a far more important matter: the proposed Americanisation of the staff canteen.

Traditionally, the DoT, like all other government departments, has had a subsidised canteen. “Mushy peas, frazzled sausages, baked beans – that kind of thing,” a mole blithely informs me. But a few weeks ago a questionnaire was circulated to staff, asking them what they would prefer to eat once they move to their new premises in Greatminster, Horseferry Road, later this year.

“We could tick boxes beside Pizza Hut, Burger King, etc,” says my mole. “We were amazed. It’s the first time this kind of innovation has ever entered Westminster.”

Sadly for lovers of the thick crust with extra cheese, Pizza Hut did not receive enough votes. But sufficient variety was requested for the powers that be to recommend a Yankee-style food mall. My mole is quite ecstatic at the thought. A brief look at his waistline, however, had a sobering effect. “I suppose,” he moaned wistfully, “that we are all going to get very fat.”

Diary – Monday 13 February 1995

I am about to do a great favour for the parliamentary staff of Don Foster MP, Lib Dem education spokesman. A few weeks ago Foster invented a joke which his office is getting very tired of. If I reproduce this joke in the national press, they say, Foster will stop telling it at every dinner, conference and event that he attends and they won’t ever have to hear it again. So, in the name of bribability, here I go:

A man walks into the Department for Education in Whitehall and asks to speak to John Patten. “John Patten is no longer Education Secretary,” explains the secretary, “it’s now Gillian Shephard.” So the man goes away, only to reappear the next day – and the next, and the next. “Look, says the receptionist on the fourth visit, “how many times do I have to tell you that John Patten is no longer Education Secretary?”

“Oh … I know that,” says the man. “I just like hearing you say it.”

Last year I voiced a suggestion so terrible I cannot believe I am having to do so again: the rush for Glyndebourne tickets is dwindling. Even dentists in the nearby Sussex town of Lewes say they think there is no need to book in advance – and indeed the box office itself confirms that so far, in the priority booking season, they have not yet sold everything out. The reason? The list of operas for the forthcoming season not only fails to contain any obvious draws, but it kicks off with Rossini’s Ermione. Ermione, I discovered, does not feature in the definitive Kobb’s opera guide. And it is described in the Penguin guide to opera on compact discs as “the one Rossini opera never revived after its first production”. At Glyndebourne, however, they are not remotely worried. “Oh that,” said a spokeswoman. “That was just to do with politics in Naples in 1819. There won’t be any such problems here.”

There was a minor mishap at last week’s special National Trust tour of

2 Willow Road, the Hampstead house built in 1937 by the Hungarian architect Erno Goldfinger as his home. (Yes, yes, he was a friend of James Bond’s creator, Ian Fleming – the latter thought it would be “funny” to name his chief baddie after him.) The tour of Goldfinger’s house was something of a controversial event, since British conservation groups believe that the National Trust should not be investing its money in such modern houses. But on this occasion the crowd was lapping it up. “Goldfinger left many original artefacts here,” said the guide, and the punters gasped. “Look,” said the guide, opening a cupboard to reveal some bits of material, “he even left some of his clothes.” More astonishment from the gawping visitors. Just then, however, a door flew open and a NT employee rushed in. To the dismay of the onlookers she hastily gathered up the clothes – with precious little respect, it seemed, for their value. Turning to the assembly, she explained, blushing: “Ahh … they’re mine.”

A slight dampener occurred at the start of last week’s launch of Jon Sopel’s biography Tony Blair: The Moderniser – the Commons division bell rang. So, despite the television cameras and the Westminster venue of Convocation Hall, scarcely any MPs turned up. Still, among those who could make it was Mark Ellen, a university friend of Blair’s and member of his student band, Ugly Rumours. I asked him if Blair had shown the hallmarks of a future MP in those days. Answer: “None of us were remotely political then. In fact, when we were occasionally asked to do charitable gigs for student squatters, Tony thought the concept a load of rubbish.”

Valentine’s Day, I have decided, should be renamed Dalai Lama Day on account of the Holy Tibetan’s great success as a dating agency. Richard Gere met his wife, Cindy Crawford, through the Dalai Lama. The same gentleman also introduced Gere to the English model Laura Bailey, and as a consequence he separated from Crawford. Now we learn that he has forsaken Bailey for Vanessa Angel, whom he met, surprise, surprise, through the Dalai Lama. If I were Vanessa Angel, I should avoid trips to Tibet.

Doorstep Entertainment

Diary – Monday 6 February 1995

It is milk round season again: the time of year when hundreds ofuniversity students sit shivering in hotel corridors waiting to be summoned to interview by various captains of industry, investment bankers, solicitors or whoever they hope will employ them. Every year, there are the inevitable gags. In my day, there was a bank which started every interview off with “let’s pretend we are on Mars …” (the idea being to get the candidates to show off their sparky, rounded characters). This year, my grown-up friends are actually doing the hiring, and I gather that the candidates are a truly sad bunch.

A number of friends asked candidates how the Millennium fund should be spent, expecting a spiel on old buildings, new buildings, sports stadiums, etc. To my friends’ astonishment, the answer invariably came back: “UK equities.”

Another candidate was asked what he would do with all the money and time in the world. Answer (robotically): “More than anything in the world, I want to work in corporate finance.” Not, I feel, a good sign for the future of British banking.

Diary – Monday 6 February 1995

I’m sure there are still plenty more surprises in store for Lord Nolan, as he struggles to reintroduce morality into the tainted halls of Parliament. Perhaps I can give him a tip. The Commons secretaries are thinking of putting before him the issue of their unpaid work on MPs’ private interests, which range from dog-walking to correspondence to lobby firms.

Officially, the secretaries will deny this, as they did last week, when the Independent reported that they had raised the issue in their own club, the Secretaries and Research Assistants Council.

But a few days after that article was published, I had a telephone call from a young secretary, whispering that there were many who wanted to raise the issue with Nolan and that steps were being taken in that direction. Forewarned, as they say, is forearmed.

Diary – Monday 6 February 1995

The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden is not having the best of luck with its stars. At the weekend, the leading Swedish soprano, Sophie Von Otter, had to drop out of Der Rosenkavalier because of a cold. Causing more bewilderment to many ROH fans, however, is the absence of America’s top diva, Aprile Millo, who, according to my 1994/1995 catalogue, was due to sing opposite Luciano Pavarotti in the Opera House’s biggest event this year – Verdi’s Ballo in Maschera (the better seats are a trifling£267 each). Ballo starts on 13 April, but Ms Millo has been replaced by an up-and-coming fellow American, Deborah Voigt – not necessarily a disappointment, my cultural friends assure me.
But still, many among the older generation of opera lovers are not pleased. Ms Voigt is young enough to sing here again, but Ms Millo is coming to the end of her career and has still, peculiarly, never sung at the Opera House. Why? The Opera House, admitting her loss is a pity, can only cite “scheduling problems”.

Diary – Monday 6 February 1995

A Sheffield University survey has released evidence of sexual harassment and racism at the Bar. That it should have taken m’learned friends 10 years longer than everyone else to realise this has, I feel, something to do with the unworldliness of their profession. Only the other evening, I was sitting in a restaurant next to a table of four barristers – two men and two women. The conversation was all about how they wanted to improve race relations at the Bar. “The thing is,” said one man in his forties, “that whenI see a black barrister, I want to be able to think of him (clearly, they weren’t discussing sexism) as a barrister first and black second.” Hearty applause.

Seconds later, he summoned the waitress. “Excuse me, but where do I find transport to take me home?” The waitress looked somewhat startled, the time being 11.30pm and the venue central London. “You could get a taxi,” she ventured timidly. “And how,” riposted the man, “do I do that?” His friends, looking faintly astonished, gestured towards the street.

Yes, Minister, the Secretaries are Revolting

Diary – Monday 30 January 1995

It seems that something happened last week: proof, at last, that Britain’s national identity has been lost for ever. What was it – has the Encyclopaedia Britannica dropped its second name? Is Rule Britannia no longer to be the rousing finale at the last night of the Proms? Of course not. A building society, The Britannia (a title I have always thought is much better suited to ships), merely decided to get rid of its logo, the woman warrior in classic pose with Union Jack shield and trident. So what?

After all, the Bank of Scotland is soon to produce a Star Trek bank card, which is a far cry from the bank’s traditional St Andrew’s Cross-festooned chequebooks, but nobody north of the border has raised so much as a squeak. The Britannia, too, needs to find a popular image that will help bring it the commercial success it needs.

If anything, I’m glad the old, anachronistic Britannia symbol is going. I spend a lot of time defending my country against accusations by north American friends that Britain is out-dated, jingoistic and isolationist. Now I will, at least partially, be able to prove them wrong.

Talking of Britannia, I am reminded of a yarn about the athletic Labour MP Kate Hoey, whose hearty enthusiasm once caused Neil Kinnock’s imagination to work overtime: he called her Ho Ho Hoey. Ms Hoey, a former Northern Ireland high-jump champion, has earned a few people’s disapprobation by landing various soccer bigwigs in the proverbial manure, as she did in the Commons last night.

Still, in Hackney they love her unreservedly. Many moons ago Ms Hoey, then a local councillor, founded a leisure centre, which she named the Britannia. She would not rest, however, until she won permission for a wave machine to be installed in the pool there – something that gave the councillors coronaries just to think about. (They wanted money spent on sensible things, you see.)

“They hated her for it,” says a friend, “but she didn’t care.”

Spotted by yours truly at the Royal Opera House on Friday night was the BA chief executive, Sir Colin Marshall, and his wife, accompanied by – you’ve got it – the former Saatchi’s director, Maurice Saatchi, and his novelist wife, Josephine Hart.

Theoretically, of course, the £60m BA account is still open, although if I were a rival ad exec I wouldn’t fancy my chances much.

I know that Valentine’s Day is a whole 15 days away, but is there a man in the country who has not already booked the flowers, the restaurant, the gifts?

Oh yes, there is. My fiance has a quite stunning record of forgetting about it every year, no matter how hard I scribble all over his diary in January, “Remember 14 Feb”.

Trouble is, boys, the longer you leave it, the harder it is to get in anywhere. Le Caprice, in London’s West End, and Albert Roux’s Quat’Saisons outside Oxford, are already fully booked. Further researches revealed a similar state of affairs elsewhere inthe country. Ah well. If you fail you can always copy my fiance, who says every time: “Of course I didn’t book anywhere – you’ve got far too much taste to want to sit in a restaurant with hundreds of gruey twoeys.” Humph.

Memo to Gary Lineker: Please would you consider moving to Essex? The brash reputation of that county was reinforced for me when I learnt that David Sullivan, the man who is bringing a soft- porn channel to our televisions, lives there – in the inevitableneo-Georgian mansion. As a former citizen of the county I wish fervently that we could produce one icon of decency to compensate for men such as Sullivan.

As it is, many people I know who live there still find themselves apologising for the fact. Only the other night I overheard a middle-aged couple greet another couple at a London theatre. “Where are you living now?” inquired one man of the other. “Essex,” replied the man. “Suffolk,” replied his wife simultaneously – treading, I noticed, rather hard on her husband’s foot.

Prince William is to have, it is reported, 18 bodyguards at Eton, should he go there – paid for by local taxpayers. Eighteen? Isn’t that rather excessive, given that the Thames Valley police force, from whom they are to be recruited, is likely to lose 150 officers in cuts this year?

Still, bodyguards have their uses – not all of them as obvious as you might think. A friend of mine who was at Cambridge with Prince Edward once commented on his popularity there. “No question the Prince was very amiable,” confided my friend, “but that wasn’t the reason for asking him to dinner,” he smirked. “The truth was that one of his bodyguards was bloody good company.”