Tonight:
4°c
This week I received an invitation to the launch of Ion Trewin's long-awaited biography of Alan Clark at the Garrick Club. Trewin is promising fresh revelations and fresh mistresses. I have a vested interest in the great Tory philanderer, as he skewered me in the final volume of his diaries, In and Out of the Wilderness. The son of Lord Clark of Civilisation called me “a tricky little prick” and “a silly little runt”, all in the same paragraph.
What had I done to warrant this? My initial mortification on reading this contumely turned to flattery. To be insulted by Clark was like being complimented by anyone else. At least I had got under the skin of the old boy. And his barbs could have been worse. Who can forget the “pudgy puffball” Ken Clarke and this, of Michael Heseltine: “the jerky wild-eyed zombie” who “in Jopling's damning phrase bought his own furniture'”. How can we ever picture Lord Hurd again without thinking of him with “a corncob up his arse”?
So who is the Alan Clark of the Noughties? Who will emerge as the pre-eminent diarist of the early 21st century? Chris Mullin's newly published diaries, A View from the Foothills, come close but they are overlong and Mullin was far too nice for his own good.
Now I think I might have found another worthy contender. On Tuesday night I attended a GQ dinner at the Dorchester Grill to honour its contributing editor (and Spectator editor), Matthew d'Ancona. Two seats away from me the historian Andrew Roberts suddenly whipped out a notebook and started taking notes. He was not transcribing my bons mots but jotting down d'Ancona's jokes. (D'Ancona said he was Rain Man to GQ editor Dylan Jones's Tom Cruise). Roberts told me that when he gets back home every night he writes up his jottings. The best diaries should be fresh, he believes, and not written with the benefit of hindsight.
Roberts is a great friend of David Cameron and impossibly well-connected, despite — or perhaps because — of his being heir to the UK Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise. He is the only person I know who goes to five parties a night, if we exclude the possibility that like his hero, Winston Churchill, he hires a body double.
But will he be rude or indiscreet enough? “What is more dull than a discreet diary,” as Chips Channon said. And will he be as candid about his sex life as Samuel Pepys and Boswell?
For my money there is only one person who truly fits the bill as the Pepys of the Noughties: a fine writer with a waspish pen and the courage and intellectual honesty to describe the world as he sees it. Step forward A N Wilson. Oscar Wilde said there is nothing like a diary if you want something sensational to read on the train. When I read A N Wilson's diary I know I will be travelling first class. In every sense.
My wife's been given some worrying latitude
I have just lost my festival virginity. Latitude in Suffolk fulfilled all my expectations: it was hideously white, hideously middle-class and hideously commercial (£8 for a programme) but I loved it. It's a sort of mini-Hay-on-Wye meets Glastonbury: think large village fête. There was no mud and there was no ageism: the stars of the show were Grace Jones (61) and Chrissie Hynde (57).
“Have you ever had a man die in your arms?” asked Grace Jones. “I have.” Well, no, but at Latitude I did have a comedian die in my arms. I exaggerate. Janeane Garofalo, hailed by Comedy Central as the one of the 100 greatest stand-up comics of all time, corpsed after six minutes and walked off. Meanwhile, my wife was performing at the festival and spoke for an hour and a half about the art of conversation. Bravo. The bad news is she now wants to be a stand-up comic. Help!
A slap-up summer for celebrities
Celebrity violence, dontcha love it? Steven Gerrard is having to defend himself against charges that he punched a businessman in a bar brawl. Amy Winehouse is going to trial after allegedly assaulting a female fan after performing at a charity ball. And Jude Law slaps a photographer. Accidentally, of course.
Why do celebrities think they can strike out at lesser mortals with impunity? I am more worried about being struck down by a porcine celebrity fist than by swine flu. Sir Philip Green once threatened to beat me up with a baseball bat but, thank goodness, he has still to act on his word. But if Kate Moss will act as nurse, then I am happy to be roughed up a bit for the celebrity cause. Just this once.
Keep religion out of church
The Church of England has declared that couples will be able to marry and baptise their children at the same time. Such hatch 'n' match services are long overdue.
I was brought up to believe that the CoE embraces every heresy under the sun but it has been rather too slow to embrace couples living in sin.
I prefer the more ecumenical approach of Father Michael Seed, who recently launched his memoir in Stringfellows surrounded by pole dancers. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has the right idea, too. When I went to his Christmas drinks I found myself surrounded not by pole dancers but by atheists. Far too much emphasis has been put on inter-faith dialogue. It is the unbelievers, the agnostics and the damned the Church should be reaching out to.
