Notebook
Sex Pistol’s Notebook
‘Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in,’ groans a weary Al Pacino in The Godfather…
Writer’s notebook
When, three years ago, I announced my retirement from writing fiction, the only thing that surprised me was the surprise…
Letter from Italy
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna My fiery Italian wife Carla is not just a passionate patriot but also a devout Catholic, and…
Westminster Notebook
The acting one sees upon the stage doesn’t show how human beings actually comport themselves in crises, but simply how…
Designer’s notebook
Zut alors! The court of King Boris gets more like Versailles each day. With some talcum powder on that ramshackle…
Letter from Los Angeles
When I arrived a month ago, one wouldn’t believe LA was suffering a major pandemic. The roads were still busy…
Physicist’s notebook
Spring is coming. There was snow in the garden till last week, here in Canada, where I have been spending…
Letter from Japan
Tokyo This week was the tenth anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake, the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in…
Letter from Barbados
For the past few weeks there’s been a 7 p.m. curfew in Barbados as part of what the government calls…
Letter from Texas
Austin ‘If I owned Texas and Hell,’ General Phil Sheridan famously said, ‘I would rent out Texas and live in…
Author’s Notebook
In the middle of December, for reasons I’m coming to, I woke early in a posh hotel. I lay semi-dozing…
Pilgrim’s Notebook
A few of the hip young things sitting along the Lisbon quayside turned their heads my way as my walking…
Afore ye go again
Could it really be 40 years since one was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature? Borne up…
Bride’s Notebook
I had a lockdown wedding. A 30-person, socially-distanced, sanitised church service was organised in under two weeks. Restrictions meant no…
Actress’s Notebook
To say that the past nine months have been tough is like saying a hurricane felt like a spring shower.…
Letter from Hawaii
In a normal week, I would jam with local musicians, but that stopped in March and we musicians miss the…
Musician’s notebook
My November was bookended by two characteristic displays of grace. I ushered it in by falling on all fours while…
Single girl’s notebook
What this government needs is a good dose of the London mob, which at its height in the 18th century…
A sketch writer’s notes
Eton’s free-speech rumpus must surely become a David Hare play, Goodbye Mr Had-Yer-Chips, starring Jeremy Irons as the headmaster and…
Letter from Albania
Our heavily laden taxi turned off the main highway from Tirana and started to negotiate the rough, one-track road. The…
NHS Notebook
Across Europe, hospitals have been filling up again with the second wave of coronavirus. France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and the…
Letter from Bangkok
Three years ago I sat down to write a novel set in my adopted home city. Placing its claustrophobic action…
Election notebook
Earlier this summer left-wing activists announced a ‘semi-autonomous zone’ in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle. Denuded of law enforcement…
Election notebook
Americans are, in my experience, the warmest, most kind-hearted and open-minded people in the world. I have found this to…
