Morning:
8°c
The wisdom of the late Keith Waterhouse was bountiful but his phrase that most inspired me was “always look up”.
It had a literal resonance in old Fleet Street, where an evening could end with a horizontal view of the world.
I remember the great Waterhouse being pointed out to me during my first week in national newspapers, shortly before I tumbled down the pub stairs. It was the error of an amateur.
Waterhouse was a master of alcohol, which did not interfere with his work, just as his work never interfered with his drinking. When he came to doubt his perfect instincts, he took the precaution of moving to a ground-floor flat, to avoid the steps.
Many revered him particularly for his polite and bloody-minded independence.
When the Mirror's proprietor Robert Maxwell took him out to lunch to suggest a few ideas he might like to put in his column, Waterhouse explained that was not how it worked, insisted on paying for the lunch and left to join the Daily Mail.
It was an unfussy demonstration of a first principle that journalists should not be purchased.
Waterhouse was a role model for heroic drinkers and journalists, if he will forgive the tautology. But most of all he was a beacon for all those who seek their fortunes in London.
When we celebrate the cosmopolitan nature of this city, let us not forget that many of us came here not from abroad but from the provinces. Those who fear or dislike London talk of the dirt and the beggars and gridlocked traffic.
That is because they are not looking up. The magnificence of great living cities is in the skylines.
Billy Liar is the story of London's summons to the provinces. Julie Christie challenges Tom Courtenay to leave Yorkshire and realise his dreams of being a scriptwriter.
“It's easy, you get on a train and four hours later there you are in London.” He replies uncertainly: “It's easy for you.”
The moment when Courtenay watches the train pull away from the station as Christie leans from the window yelling at him to get on board is seminal for Londoners. It is a test of ambition and nerve. Cinema audiences are willing Courtenay to have the courage to do it.
The point about Keith Waterhouse is that for all his tenderness towards the provinces, he got on the train to London.
Pictures too painful to print
What would you do if you were a newspaper editor and you were offered strikingly newsworthy photographs of a 21-year-old American soldier blown to bits in Afghanistan?
The soldier's father begged the picture agency not to release the photograph; the agency responded, sincerely, that horrors of war should not be hidden.
The New York Times declined to print the picture, out of respect for family wishes.
In Britain, The Sunday Times and the Observer were among those who believed that public interest outweighed private anguish.
It is not an easy case. We know that Selly Oak hospital and Headley Court rehabilitation centre are full of burned and terribly maimed young men and that this is not exactly advertised. Should we not see what war does?
On the other hand, these are people's sons and their feelings matter.
The sense of dislocation between civilians and the armed forces has been a cause of the breaking of the military covenant.
Would newspapers have such strong stomachs for printing, say, young women mortally injured in road accidents?
Photographs of a dead Diana, Princess of Wales were circulated but turned down by newspapers on grounds of taste, decency and regard for her family.
I reckon that the family of Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard deserve the same compassion. Sometimes the first draft of history is too raw to complete.
I share Princess Michael's burden
At a small and pleasant engagement lunch at the weekend, my future daughter-in-law and I discussed, saucer-eyed, the reports of the forthcoming Freddie Windsor and Sophie Winkleman wedding.
The clever bride is said to be surviving on herbal valium as guest lists and catering costs run out of control.
I am imagining myself into the role of the groom's mother, Princess Michael of Kent, who is said to have her mobile phone permanently “clamped to her ear” while she calls in favours from the rich and mighty.
So far, all I have managed to scrounge is a field.
Interestingly, even Princess Pushy has not solved the fundamental anxieties of the weather, the seat placings and whether the drink will run out.
High or low, we all merge on the booze cruise to Calais.
As one mother-in-law to another, I wonder if Princess Michael's problems began with securing Hampton Court?
If she had gone for a little country wedding, she could have fobbed off guests by citing a small church and modest intentions.
The Astor wedding in Oxfordshire at the weekend — dubbed by Tatler the society wedding of the year, with cruel disregard for all Princess Michael's hard work — managed to look both grand and low-key.
Apart from the political self-consciousness of David Cameron arriving in a suit rather than tails, to avoid any Lord Snooty photographs, the wedding did not strike a false note.
• The start of autumn and back into tights. I hesitate at the Marks & Spencer lingerie department.
Here are 10 denier tights that promise to be ladder-resistant. Can it be true and is it economically responsible?
The genius of tights is that they are throwaway necessities, rather like Chloe Madeley's toiletries.
Sometimes I get through three pairs a day. What will it mean for this industry if tights and stockings turn out to be as indestructible as Crocs sandals?
As with most products designed for women, there is more hype than fact.
Ladder-resistant tights mean that you can just about get to work without shredding them. By midday, the ladders are slithering blithely down my calves.
