Gossip
You can make anything up about the royal family and it will be printed as a matter of fact
Royal gossip is largely invented, says Philip Hensher – but Tina Brown repeats it regardless
Brightest of the Bright Young People: the rich, rackety life of Cecil Beaton
In December 1979, the 28-year-old Hugo Vickers, dining with a friend, declared: ‘I see little point to life these days.’…
High society and low gossip: the journals of Kenneth Rose
Kenneth Rose was gossip columnist by appointment to the aristocracy and gentry. He was, of course, a snob — nobody…
Why suburban ladies really play tennis
Because my mother is always telling me everything will be all right if I join a tennis club, I’ve joined…
The new Ivy doesn’t have the old magic (if there ever was any)
The Ivy is a Playmobil-style faux-medieval restaurant in a triangular building opposite The Mousetrap; of the two, The Ivy is…
Plutarch on smartphone addiction
Adults, we are told, as much as children, become gibbering wrecks if deprived of their mobiles or iPhones for more…
Dear Mary: How can I spike a gossip-pedlar’s guns?
Q. On arrival at a top level dinner, I was surprised to see at the table a woman who, I…
Where artists went to drink and die
Once below a time (to quote the man himself) the bloated poet Dylan Thomas slouched back to New York’s Chelsea…
My family's better days
Simon Blow recalls the wealth, recklessness and beauty of his family’s better days
The 'semi-detached' member of Margaret Thatcher's cabinet
John Biffen was mentally ill. This is the outstanding revelation of Semi-Detached, a memoir which has been assembled from his…
Can virgins have babies?
Mrs Christabel Russell, the heroine of Bevis Hillier’s sparkling book, was a very modern young woman. She had short blonde…
'He said you said she said' — country chatter is exhausting
Speeding down the farm track from my little country retreat, I came across the gamekeeper in his Defender. I wound…
The Rothschilds, the Spenders, the Queen...
The novelist David Plante is French-Québécois by ancestry, grew up in a remote Francophone parish in Yankee New England and…
Darling Monster, edited by John Julius Norwich - review
It must have been awful for Diana and Duff Cooper to be separated from their only child during the war,…
As Luck Would Have It, by Derek Jacobi - review
Alan Bennett once overheard an old lady say, ‘I think a knighthood was wasted on Derek Jacobi,’ and I know…
There and Then: Personal Terms 6, by Frederic Raphael - review
Frederic Raphael is forensic in his description of the failures of successful people. He is enviously superior and he is…
This Town, by Mark Leibovich - review
Many books have been written about the corruption, venality and incestuousness that characterise Washington DC, but none has been as…
