Diary

Music

Where the real thing clings on

• 02 August 2007

At the muddy rock festivals and the low-budget pub gigs, you can hear something that doesn't come off a computer

Life & Society

Oh, for the comfort of the real monsoon

• 26 July 2007

In the storms, it took me 24 hours to get from London to Cornwall. It never occurred to me that British rain could do this . . .

Life & Society

Upside-down umbrellas and hard-boiled mice

• 19 July 2007

What's the difference between dogs and deckchairs? Should I feed a hungry audience? And does wearing women's knickers help Luton's footballers score?

Lifestyle

How would Princess Anne say "lingerie"?

• 12 July 2007

When an HRH is sitting at your table, you need to come up with an icebreaker . . .

UK Politics

Jacqui Smith's rise, no thanks to me

• 05 July 2007

It would need a line of unrivalled wisdom to top the thoughts of Eric Hobsbawm. So I went in search the next day at Glastonbury, where I found . . .

Life & Society

Am I a dwarf or a horseman?

• 28 June 2007
• 6 comments

It's an honour to be mentioned in the same breath as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris. We could become known as the Four Horsemen of the Counter-Apocalypse

Middle East

Waheed Pepsi, s'il vous plaît

• 21 June 2007

Watching the glamorous, polyglot Lebanese enjoy the sun, I thought what an attractively sybaritic race they are

Arts & Culture

Excuse me, who am I?

• 14 June 2007

The birth pangs of a film. The smell of Mumbai at night. And the mother of the streets who provides the dispossessed with a home

How my future caught up with the past

• 07 June 2007

Art has the power to disrupt our relationship with the everyday. So does having your first child - I now live in a permanent state of immanence

Lifestyle

Don't call me a fraud, or a forehead

• 04 June 2007

The shocking seven dwarfs, why authors should always wear wellies in Wales, and abstract conversation with Yoko Ono