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86 Articles

The Old Un's Notes

❋ A new exhibition of declassified documents is full of espionage thrills. MI5: Official Secrets is at the National Archives in Kew from 5th April to 28th September. Exhibits include an unseen snap of wicked old Anthony Blunt, as well as the manually typed transcripts of interrogations of him and Kim Philby. The ordinariness is gripping. An agent's 1963 transcript of meeting Philby (codename Peach), to hand over a confession, adds, 'We arranged that we would go to the Gents together.' Then there's German spy Karl Muller, who in 1915 infiltrated Britain posing as a Russian. Foolishly, Muller used the schoolboy trick of lemon-juice secret ink to transmit military intel. The Old Un can confirm that heating reveals the lemon-juice script, as carbon from the acetic acid oxidises. The postal…

The Old Un's Notes

Among this month's contributors

Tim Rice (p14) created, with Andrew Lloyd Webber, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita. His show My Life in Musicals tours from 11th April. Maureen Lipman (p22) was in Laurence Olivier's National Theatre Company (1971-73). She was Beattie in the BT ads and stars in Coronation Street. She played Joyce Grenfell in her show Re: Joyce. Ronald Searle (p29) was one of our greatest cartoonists and illustrators. Searle (1920-2011) dreamt up the naughty girls of St Trinian's and, with Geoffrey Willans, created Nigel Molesworth. Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais (p36) are legendary TV writers. They wrote The Likely Lads (1964-66), Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, Porridge, Lovejoy and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.…

Among this month's contributors

Winchester men have 'biggest feet in England' Hampshire Chronicle Rev's pudding was mistaken for explosives Press and Journal 'Ghost town' fears as community leader raises concerns over wonky pole East Anglian Daily Times £15 for published contributions NEW! Tune into Radio Oldie Every Tuesday, you can find the latest weekly interview by Harry Mount or Charlotte Metcalf with some of our Oldie friends, such as Stephen Fry, Craig Brown and AN Wilson. Top of the Pods And we release three more podcasts on top of the Pods, our selection of the best podcasts and comedy clips on the internet. Just sign up for the newsletter on the homepage of the website Sign up to our weekly e-newsletter…

Who wants to be a billionaire?

I am on the train from Malmesbury to Paddington. I could have been on an earlier train, but I booked this one and did not want to pay the extra. I travel first class with a Senior Railcard, so the fare is marginally less ludicrous than it might otherwise be. I am here with a cup of tea and half an egg sandwich (bought at my local Tesco yesterday for just £1.25: I love an end-of-day bargain) and my notebook. It's rather a handsome notebook. I got it as a freebie in a goodie bag at a conference in York. I have been in Malmesbury interviewing Sir James Dyson. The super-rich are different from us. They have more money. Dyson, artist turned designer and engineer, looking 60, turning 78 in…

Who wants to be a billionaire?

Fear and loathing in Fleet Street

You will be familiar with the American-born concept of the intervention. The friends and family of a person in trouble ambush the loved one with the intent of forcing them to seek help for whatever it is – generally drugs or drink, though more recherché forms of self-destruction are also available – that ails them. One notable example came in The Sopranos, when members of that lovable New Jersey family held the one for heroin-hooked psycho Chris Moltisanti that climaxed, perhaps inevitably, in a mass brawl. It is to be hoped that our intervention would conclude without a group outing to A&E. But if violence is the price to be paid, so be it. Something must be done, and soon, for Allister Heath of the Telegraph. Before we go further,…

Fear and loathing in Fleet Street

WHAT WAS a slide projector? Do you have a box of forgotten photographic slides at the back of a cupboard? Or an old projector, gathering dust? My brother and I recently discovered that our dad's Noris Trumpf projector, in its original case, still works after 50 years! In the 1950s and '60s, the slide projector, a cool bit of kit, had a huge impact on communal entertainment and making memories mid-century. Its starring role in the history of photography is often forgotten these days, when you can shoot and view a film on your smartphone. Slides, originally painted and viewed through 'magic lanterns', have existed since the 16th century. In 1850, a slide containing a photographic image was created by the Langenheim brothers – only ten years after the invention…

WHAT IS slop? Slop is a bit like spam, but I'm afraid it's worse. It's the term for the low-quality words and pictures generated by artificial intelligence (AI) online. Like digital black mould, it festers and spawns in the dark corners of websites and the airless expanses of social media. And once you notice it, you realise it is everywhere. The term is thought to have been coined by a developer named Simon Willison. He hoped to focus minds on the sort of useless, weird and misleading content that begins to proliferate online following the rollout of large-language models such as ChatGPT and Gemini and image-diffusion models such as Dall-E and Midjourney. If you've performed a Google search in the last year or so, you've probably encountered some slop, since…

I write the songs

I'm about to embark on a 33-date tour of the UK. This recklessness has come about because a slightly shorter and less arduous version of this escapade worked very well last spring – 22 shows in 28 days, all in England. This time around, I'm also venturing into Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland itself. I made a rather half-hearted attempt to become a pop star in 1964. I wisely abandoned it a year later when I met the 17-year-old Andrew Lloyd Webber and decided to have a crack at writing songs rather than performing them. I also instantly abandoned my attempts to write tunes, as Andrew seemed to have that half of the process sewn up with staggering skill and determination. Furthermore, his ambitions were entirely centred round musical…

I write the songs

How to be interesting

Now that a personage of such national importance as Tim Martin, the boss of Wetherspoon, says dinner parties are 'Yawn, yawn', we should take note. He said dinner parties are both boring and deadly. They are killing off his Wetherspoons and other pubs as it's cheaper for punters to trough at home, as F & B (food and beverage) served in hospitality – as opposed to private consumption – is VAT-rated. I agree with Tim. Most dinner parties are boring, and too long. The format is pretty stale. How do we save the dinner party and the pub from extinction? Easy. We should ban boring subjects, and boring questions. Do not turn, ever, and ask about the following. 1) Children. My bugbear is strangers thinking it's nice to ask me,…

How to be interesting

The art of love

Rubens's most intimate portrait. Helena, Rubens's second wife, is cast, playfully, as Venus, the Goddess of Love. Rubens has posed her in homage to his great predecessor Titian, who made several paintings of women in fur – and in imitation of Venus Pudica. Derived from classical sculptures, it refers to Venus covering her nakedness. Yet, instead of hiding her breasts, Helena uses her arm to lift them into prominence, nipples erect. The moralising is clear in Steen's larger-scale paintings of chaotic, dysfunctional families, for which he is still famous. This is a classic example, full of chaos and jeopardy. In a topsy-turvy world, a child smokes a pipe, the dog eats the pie while the matriarch sleeps, and the baby throws his dish onto the floor. And the flirtatious woman…

The art of love

'I've got ten grandchildren, never having had a baby, 52 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.' So says the fabulous actress, cabaret star and Oldie of the Year winner Thelma Ruby – formerly Thelma Widgoer of Leeds, and Thelma Frye after her marriage at to the late director and educator Peter Frye. She turns 100 on 23rd March. But, still, she recently had to learn a scene and audition five times, in person, for the Mexican director Alejandro Iñárritu for a part in a new Tom Cruise film. 'Don't think I got it after all that,' she laughs. I first saw Thelma in pantomime in Hull in 1953 as Prince Charming (right), when I was seven. My mother must have told me she was Jewish, like us, and I clocked that there…

George's magic flower power

During a 40-year career, performing a solo Oscar Wilde show, I undertook many periods of 'resting', when I did almost any job that turned up. And so, in 1970, I was lucky enough to become under-gardener at the Friar Park estate high on a hill overlooking Henley-on-Thames. Resembling a French château, it had been built in 1889 by a successful solicitor and horticulturist called Sir Frank Crisp. After his death in 1919, the house was sold on and became the home of a Roman Catholic teaching order of nuns who ran a school in the building for 20 years. One of their pupils was Jane Birkin (1946-2023). Jane, of course, became a renowned star but in those days was best known for her nude appearance in Antonioni's 1967 film Blow…

George's magic flower power

Farewell, my lovely address book

I'm giving my grown-up son a lift to a party. He gives me the postcode but no road name. 'I need a road name,' I screech. 'What?' 'There has to be a road name or I won't be able to find it.' 'You haven't put Google maps on?' I hadn't. I navigate my town by street name, the shop on the corner, the garage to the left. I like to exercise the navigational part of my brain, and I like a proper, old-fashioned address. But addresses are slipping into the vast repository of defunct things, along with DVDs, CDs, handwritten letters with stamps and landlines. And so, by stealth, contact lists on phones are taking over address books. I recently decided to replace our dog-eared old address book with a…

Farewell, my lovely address book

London's oldest restaurant

Tucked into a velvet banquette behind snowy drapery at Wiltons restaurant in St James's, London, I felt like Alice tumbling into an Edwardian wonderland. Just across the room were semi-private booths, resembling enormous four-poster beds, conjuring up historic images of deliciously decadent trysts with showgirls. The deservedly famed oysters arrived, followed by the domed silver trolley trundling into view with Friday's special, salmon coulibiac. It was several hours and the cheese trolley and pudding later before I left. It had been such a rare, delightful indulgence that it made me wonder about the restaurant's origins. George William Wilton set up his oyster barrow in 1742 on Cockspur Street off Haymarket – so-called for selling hay and straw for London's livestock. Wilton's stall was popular with the traders: oysters were cheap,…

London's oldest restaurant

St Trinian's at war

My uncle, John Mackwood, was a Japanese POW both in the Changi Camp in Singapore and on the notorious death railway in modern-day Thailand. He was in the camp with the great artist and cartoonist Ronald Searle (1920-2011) and my uncle John, having been at theatre school, took an active interest in the plays that the POWs put on in Changi. I have copies of several programme covers of those plays with titles such as In Clink Tonight, Khaki on Parade and Dover Road. In one play, R C Sheriff's Badger's Green, in March 1942, Lieutenant J L Mackwood played Mr Twigg and Ronald Searle was billed as Scenic Artist. My parents – my father, Charles, was John's elder brother – encountered a man on a ship coming home from…

St Trinian's at war

Today's Dissolution of the Monasteries

Funny old Enoch Powell preached a disturbing sermon on the parable in St Luke's Gospel about the rich man and the poor man (Luke 16:19-31). The rich man has every privilege during his lifetime, but when he dies he goes to torment in Hades. The poor man has spent his life sitting at the rich man's gate, covered in sores. When he dies, he is taken to Abraham's bosom. The rich man asks Abraham if Lazarus can come and put a few drops of water on his tongue. The offer is refused. Can Lazarus, then, not go back to Earth and warn the rich man's family to change their ways? 'No,' says Abraham. It's clear from the Bible what the rich should have been doing. 'If they will not listen…

Today's Dissolution of the Monasteries

The fatty generation

Have you ever sat in a motorway service station the wrong side of the latest Cornish-pasty chain – and wondered how you'll squeeze your way back to the car park without getting up close and personal with a man mountain and his matching woman whale, both in Nike plus-size sports tights? Like a non-stop but very slow conga, the Big Ones leave their oversized cars, roll and sway through the automatic doors and around the food court before coiling about the counters of pasties – traditional, steak and gravy, and cheese and onion. They often come in groups, possibly to maximise the free-jumbo-sausage-roll offer. You may need satnav to find a route around them without meeting their close relatives in the McDonald's tailback. They too wear outsize sports gear, for…

The fatty generation

Handy guide to armless tops

An elegant neighbour, who lives with a husband and three sons, is ruthless about disposing of what she calls clutter. She came to our cottage, holding out – with a look of slight irritation on her face – a quilted navy gilet with orange trim. She offered it to my husband, asserting that, although it was brand-new, she wanted to get rid of it because 'there are just too many gilets hanging up in our hall'. It seemed remarkably generous of her. Later we realised the gilet was 'noisy' – there was an audible sound of rustling when Giles moved around in it. When a taste-broking friend arrived in the cottage, she assessed that the gilet was 'bordering on fine – it's 100-per-cent nylon, and the bright orange trim is…

Handy guide to armless tops

When the sixties really swang

Dick Clement In 1960, towards the end of my two years' National Service in the RAF, I applied for a job at the BBC. I had no idea what I could or couldn't do, but it felt as if I'd be swimming in the right pond. I got offered a trainee position as 'studio manager' and accepted. I reported this to a bunch of fellow officers and said glibly, 'From what I hear, I'll have to drop my trousers if I want to get on.' A visiting Wing Commander frowned. 'I hope you're joking. I happen to find that kind of thing entirely disgusting.' I was right about one thing (not dropping my trousers): it was the right pond. 'Studio manager' sounded dull, but I liked my colleagues, male and…

When the sixties really swang

Start spreading the news – I'm the new Sinatra

My default position is to say yes. Over the years, I've accepted plenty of invitations I should have steered clear of. On Would I Lie to You?, I sat there like a turnip, too slow to get a word in between the professional comedians' whip-fast banter. On Celebrity Mastermind, I was so panicked I ran up the lowest score on record – I couldn't even name the left-handed lead singer Beatle. Occasionally, wiser heads have dissuaded me from challenges. My family put a stop to Dancing on Ice with cries of 'Mum, you can't dance and are far too old – you'll break your neck!' My agent had similar reservations, more politely put, about celebrity Strictly. But my agreeing to The Masked Singer went unchallenged by nannying friends and family,…

Start spreading the news – I'm the new Sinatra

End of the line for the glorious tram

A news story popped up on my computer. It was about trams in London. A section of tramline was being closed in Croydon. OK, the story did not knock Trump off the front page of the New York Times. But for me it was cataclysmic. I had no idea that there was a trams network in London. How often had I ruminated about the fate of the London tram. When visiting Zurich some years ago, I was impressed by the brilliant electric-tram service, so noiseless and so planet-friendly by comparison with our diesel-belching buses. Why can't we have trams in London, I thought, like those clever Europeans? I excitedly called the TFL press office to find out more about the London trams network, and was disappointed to discover that it's…

End of the line for the glorious tram

The Englishman's last right: a blazing bonfire

'Property is theft' is a catchphrase coined by the 19th-century anarchist Proudhon. It is a fact that I own one acre of land – incidentally the smallest amount of land that qualifies for membership of the Country Land and Business Association. And since the former Labour government was ousted in 2010, thickets of shrubs and evergreens I planted have grown exponentially – beneficiaries of the drenchings that were a once-in-a-generation event but now seem to happen yearly and trigger what a neighbour has identified as the Refrigeration Effect. This neighbour, a vulcanologist and avid supporter of Israel's conduct in the war, claims that, with cold air running over saturated ground, it's no surprise that laundry never dries out. In summer, English yeomen swear when their petrol mowers won't start because…

The Englishman's last right: a blazing bonfire

Kent councillor's case for refugees

Most voters want to see immigration reduced – and think the boats that come across the Channel should be stopped. Deal, just eight miles from Dover, is on the front line for this traffic. Yet there's a local councillor who believes the town should honour its motto to 'Welcome the Stranger', and be supportive to the cause of refugees, stateless persons and immigrants. Ben Bano is a widower aged 75, with the craggy looks of a retired university professor. More than ten years ago, he launched Seeking Sanctuary, an organisation that helps migrants and refugees. Ben's approach to migrants is based on two motivations. One is that his own parents found refuge in Britain in 1938, from Nazi-occupied Europe. The other, unusually, is based on a sense of Christian spirituality.…

Kent councillor's case for refugees

Eureka! My Archimedes moment

My mother and I – while often at war – have much in common. We both live at the same address. We both sponge money off the same 88-year-old man. And we both have completely messed up body-washing routines. Specifically, my mother can no longer lie in a bath, and I can no longer stand in the shower. Being only five foot long, I can actually float in a standard bath. Sometimes, I wish I had more body area to scrub, as I told Father. Noting my piled-on paunch, he observed, 'You're working on that one, though, aren't you, son?' My preferred modus operandi for a bath is dimmed lighting and disastrously loud radio, as I have to take out my hearing aids. Radio 4 Extra blares the abridged Dickens…

Eureka! My Archimedes moment

Rebirth of the Renaissance

What is it about the Renaissance? How has a loosely defined – some would say indefinable – period in history seduced so many for so long? Well, it's the art, I hear you reply. Of course, the genius of a Michelangelo or a Leonardo will command our attention for as long as we have eyes to see. We mustn't forget the architecture – all those classically inspired, perfectly proportioned cathedrals, churches and palazzi, soothing the breast much more reliably than the busy Baroque or revived Gothic that succeeded it, let alone the horrors of what the modern architecture profession would later foist on us. The literature isn't bad, either. A Renaissance library could include not just Italian masters, from Dante and Petrarch to Boccaccio, but Montaigne, Erasmus, Cervantes and Shakespeare…

Rebirth of the Renaissance

School on TV? It's all scrumpy and rumpy-pumpy

It was completely by mistake the other day that I began to watch the school drama series Waterloo Road. It must have been something to do with watching the television while ironing and randomly pushing buttons on the antiquated remote. Someone somewhere decided that Waterloo Road was the thing for me. And, by George, he or she was right. The first series came out in 2006, by which time I had been teaching for only four years. Set in a school in Rochdale, it opens with the headmaster, driven beyond endurance, having a nervous breakdown on the roof of one of the school buildings. Thereafter it deals with the travails of the acting headmaster and his attempts to turn this rough school into something resembling an institution of learning more…

School on TV? It's all scrumpy and rumpy-pumpy

The Bible's dazzling pearls

Books on spirituality become very dated. Shelf space was needed in our monastery library. So two of us were clearing out some 19th-century black-bound and grim-looking volumes in tiny print – translated, mostly, from the French – which were gathering dust on a top shelf. Inexplicably, among them was a lavishly illustrated paperback on Fabergé's Easter eggs. My companion wanted to get rid of it, but I wouldn't let her. Even though I don't particularly like Fabergé I was glad we kept it, as it made me think. St Paul is not in favour of jewellery: it makes him cross. But both the Old Testament in general and Matthew's Gospel in particular see it from a quite different angle. One of my favourite references to ornaments occurs in Psalm 44.…

The Bible's dazzling pearls

Sir Martin Jacomb (1929-2024)

The Rev Dr Ayla Lepine gave the welcome and bidding prayer at St James's, Piccadilly, for Sir Martin Jacomb. Jacomb was Chancellor of the University of Buckingham, Chairman of Canary Wharf, vice-chairman of Kleinwort Benson and deputy chairman of Barclays Bank. In the eulogy, Andrew Joy, Jacomb's nephew, remembered Martin's catchphrase at his landmark parties: 'Plenty of drink and no dull people.' He recalled how the historian John Julius Norwich, who had known Martin from the age of 13, said of him, 'He is the only man I know who has never said a stupid thing.' Andrew Joy recalled Martin saying, 'Always take the corner seat at the board table. That way, you can see everyone while you are talking without turning your head. And speak softly and clearly: people…

Sir Martin Jacomb (1929-2024)

How to keep oldies in the driving seat

Telling a patient that he (or she) is no longer fit to drive and must surrender his licence is one of the most unpleasant tasks a doctor has to fulfil. The patient almost always takes it badly. He protests, often angrily, that he has been driving for over 60 years and that, without his car, life will become difficult, impossible or not worth living for him at all. He doesn't need a young whippersnapper of 50 to tell him what he can and can't do. In this situation, the close relatives are often the doctor's best allies. They have often wanted precisely this for the sake of the old person's safety. They say that they will remove the sparkplugs or otherwise incapacitate the patient's car. Some 22 per cent of…

How to keep oldies in the driving seat

When I met Auberon Waugh (1939-2001) in 1994, I had barely heard of him. He and his wife, Teresa, had been billeted at our house for a nearby wedding. They came back after the event, took dinner with my mother, me and my then girlfriend, and then they went to bed, leaving early in the morning. I didn't give it another thought. Why would I? The dinner was the usual fare and of course I can't remember what we spoke about. A year out of university and with the world apparently at my feet, why would a bespectacled writer, who wrote for the rags only people like my mother liked to read and whom I was unlikely ever to see again, hold a place in my mind? I was soon…

The elephant in the interview room

In 1963, when I was in my teens, I went for a job interview. I was edgy about the questions they would fire at me and had an image of being confronted by a panel of interrogators, as in the scene in the Peter Sellers 1962 film Only Two Can Play. Sellers's character had cause for concern because the panel's chairman turned out to be the husband of his mistress. No such problems for the eighteen-year-old me, but it was still daunting. I was to be interviewed by one apparently middle-aged chap. On meeting him again in later years, I realised that at the time he must have been only in his late twenties! I sat outside his office while he finished a phone call. I was expecting to pick…

READERS' LETTERS

I lived The Good Life SIR: I grew up just round the corner from where the Goods ('Fifty years of The Good Life', March issue) had their garden, in Kewferry Road, Northwood. At the time Northwood was a genteel suburb and quintessential Metro-Land. However, Tom and Barbara would not have had the seal of approval from the neighbours. The Metropolitan Line visionaries under Edward Watkin wanted suburban man to use the train every weekday to commute, before coming back to his home away from the smoke. The Goods had given this up in order to try to be self-sufficient – which, as we know, proved to be something of a struggle. Some years later, I had the good fortune to mention this to Penelope Keith. Yours faithfully, Kevin J Last,…

READERS' LETTERS

Dr Crippen in the dock

Story of a Murder By Hallie Rubenhold Doubleday £25 It is 79 years since George Orwell wrote Decline of the English Murder. Orwell dissected those 'murders whose story is known in its general outline to almost everyone and which have been made into novels and rehashed over and over again by the Sunday papers'. Yet those same cases – Dr Crippen, Jack the Ripper – are still being retold. A few years ago Hallie Rubenhold's The Five gave us a feminist take on the Whitechapel killings. Now, in Story of a Murder, she takes on the Crippen case. Crippen's story is quickly told. Michigan-born, Crippen was a quack homeopath who fetched up in London in 1897 at the age of 33. His wife, Belle, was a music-hall singer of Polish…

Dr Crippen in the dock

Very Grand Guignol

Empty Wigs By Jonathan Meades Unbound £25 Sensitivity editors qualified in Diversity Awareness Training at any conglomerated house would have 40 fits combing through Jonathan Meades's manuscript. The N-word turns up, as does the assertion 'wogs begin at Calais'. Jews have 'enormous snozzles', which use up an unfair share of oxygen. Paedophilia is not a crime but 'expressions of fondness'. Middle Eastern fundamentalism is the property of 'superstitious illiterates' and 'superstitious barbarians,' who have no intention of civilising themselves, as they rather enjoy acts of terror. The Third Reich was green before 'green' ever was – so bully for them. And so on and so forth. Sexism, racism, old bufferism, Islamophobia – all the shibboleths are present. Luckily for Meades (and for us), his enlightened publisher, the crowdfunded Unbound, can…

Very Grand Guignol

Taking Manhattan By Russell Shorto Swift Press £20 If the art of the deal has a global HQ, it has to be the famously transactional US President's home town – New York or, more specifically, Manhattan. Deal-making lies buried deep in its early history and collective DNA. New York – or New Amsterdam as it then was – became the capital of the provincial extension of the Dutch Republic 400 years ago. In 1625, Broadway was still an Indian trail and Wall Street merely the location of a small town's northern ramparts. Yet, according to a new history, it was largely the commercial genius of the Dutch – together with a smattering of English realpolitik – that fuelled New York's eventual takeover from the British capital as the world's new…

Spring Is the Only Season: How It Works, What It Does and Why It Matters By Simon Barnes Bloomsbury £18.99 There is a moment when we first encounter spring that we might call pure joy. Often it is more delicious and complicated than that: it's the excited, restless bewitchment experienced by Mole in the opening of The Wind in the Willows. When we are sprung on like that, we are transformed. We commit acts of great praise or foolishness, and life is never quite the same again. Many of us develop personal definitions of the apotheosis of spring. For me, it is when a butter-yellow brimstone butterfly bursts out from behind the catkins and sets off into the pale-blue late-February sky. As befits a writer best known for sharing the…

War of the Words

The CIA Book Club: The Best-Kept Secret of the Cold War By Charlie English William Collins £25 The CIA is, for many in the West, a name of ill omen: the spookiest of spooks, capable of assassinations, the overthrowing of democratically elected governments, stuffing explosives into Fidel Castro's cigars, you name it. But the subtitle of this book suggests something even more sinister or embarrassing. And, indeed, much of the material in this book remains classified – English had to ask the participants directly for their memories. The murky secret, it turns out, was that the CIA funded numerous underground presses throughout Eastern (Soviet) Europe during the Cold War. It paid for the printing and distribution of hundreds of titles of books and magazines throughout the Soviet Union. And that…

War of the Words

Charles II's difficulties with girls

Writing history, I began to view quite ordinary situations in a different light. Why should Charles II, in his youth, bother about children – his own or anyone else's? When his father was executed by Parliament in 1649, Charles II, as he became, was not yet 19. Time surely to be concentrating on his own youth rather than on the youth of the country. Charles II was a handsome man with the darkly attractive looks of his Medici ancestors. He would not lack for little friends, whether they were princesses or chambermaids. But the real question that occupied Europe after the death of Charles I was not so much the little prince or princess playing in the royal nursery, as the fine lady who might be seated on the royal…

Charles II's difficulties with girls

Commonplace Corner

The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you're an artist. David Hockney If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there. Lewis Carroll I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time. Charles M Schulz If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you. A A Milne Nobody realises that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. Albert Camus You taught me that what mattered first was narrative, and that if one wanted to do anything extra, one must still see to it that the story stood up on its own. Kingsley Amis to Somerset Maugham,…

Commonplace Corner

Pretentious prices Many trendy coffee bars and bistros have adopted a pretentious habit – omitting the final numeral from the price on the menu. These haughty cafés love to display their wares, usually on a handwritten board, in the most twee fashion: 'Flat white – 4.1', 'Earl Grey tea – 3.3', 'Pain aux raisins – 3.6'. I'm not too sure of the logic behind this strange practice, but it's something you don't see in other trades. I can't imagine my local garage offering a full service and MOT for 235.5. Maybe they think it looks less expensive; that, by leaving out the end number, it will make the price appear smaller, thus cheaper. And they usually exclude the pound sign too, craftily removing the concept of money altogether, in the…

BRIDGET JONES: MAD ABOUT THE BOY (15) Just before Bridget Jones's Diary was published in 1996, there was a single embargoed proof copy doing the rounds in the offices of Picador, the book's publisher. The twentysomethings and thirtysomethings in the office raced through that single copy in turn, leaving it tattered and dog-eared, if not quite soaked in Chardonnay and Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream. Helen Fielding's book was pitch-perfect and extremely funny – because, like most great comedy, it had truth at its heart. The first film, also called Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), was spot-on, too. The same can't be said for Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy – the fourth film in the series. It doesn't have that kernel of truth. Instead, it's a clumsy…

IT RUNS IN THE FAMILY The Mill at Sonning, until 12th April Is Ray Cooney, 92, Britain's most unfashionable playwright? In 2012, when Cooney co-directed a movie of his biggest stage hit, Run for Your Wife ('as funny as leprosy'), film critics queued up to give it a ferocious kicking. It was widely cited as one of the worst British films ever made. Yet showbiz history is littered with awful films of fine plays. Run for Your Wife ran for nearly nine years in London's West End, Cooney's plays are regularly revived in theatres throughout the land, and Cooney has become a byword for British bedroom farce, Britain's answer to Georges Feydeau. Isn't it terribly snobbish for critics to deride a beloved farceur who sets out simply to entertain? I…

The Island is a drama about the Desert Island Discs island. It's now crowded with castaways, littered with their discarded bibles and Shakespeares, and their weird luxuries: terrific idea! Inhabitants are now chopping up their pianos, and burning the pages of Henry IV, Part 1 on the campfire. They are exasperated that the latest islander has brought yet another bloody coffee machine – and what use is Ian Hislop's lifetime supply of Frosties? Scriptwriters Tom Oxenham and Simon Alcock have a ball, with so many Monty Pythonish possibilities. But it doesn't quite live up to its promise, despite Stephen Mangan (a recent castaway, with the enthralling story of his huge Irish family) narrating. Some impressions from Dead Ringers might have helped. A new Radio 3 series, Facing the Music, also…

The White Lotus (Sky) began as a hurriedly put-together pandemic project and is now in its third season. It is generally agreed to be a masterpiece. Even the opening credits have genius: scrolls of scenic wallpaper depicting palm trees, pineapples, monkeys, hibiscus plants, ancient ruins and young lovers. As the music gets increasingly frantic, they come alive. Storm clouds gather, waves rise, the fruit starts to rot, fish get caught in the tentacles of jellyfish, sharks eat men and goats fornicate with women. Close observers will see that the images contain clues to the chaos that will ensue in the show. Season one was set in Hawaii, season two in Sicily, and season three takes place on an island in Thailand, but the format remains identical. The discovery of a…

LA VIE PARISIENNE GRISÉLIDIS Just when we thought the golden age of studio-made opera recording was over, an elite Swiss-based foundation gave us Bru Zane – the editorial and recording wing of the Centre de Musique Romantique Française. Since its launch in 2009, it's produced no fewer than 42 recordings of rare and not so rare French operas written between 1780 and 1920. Loyal collectors will be familiar with Bru Zane's distinctive demy octavo 200-page hardbacks, with their snugly encased CDs, texts, translations, scholarly essays – and pairs of silk marker ribbons. The two newest releases are among the finest yet. Offenbach's uproarious take on 1860s Paris, La Vie parisienne, where louche residents fleece gullible tourists as they flock to the fleshpots of the newly designated 'Gay Paree', has simply…

DYLAN'S MUSE I've got a theory. There would have been no folk protest movement, political edge to rock music, Concert for Bangladesh or Live Aid, had it not been for one person. And it's not Bob Dylan. It's his old girlfriend Suze Rotolo. You'll know her – the flame-haired teenager on his arm on the cover of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan as they tramp through New York's West Village in the snow. She's now back in the frame again as one of the key figures in A Complete Unknown, the winning new biopic about his breakthrough in the early '60s. Bob comes across – and fairly – as a rude but charming, self-obsessed and manipulative fame-seeker forgiven for his catalogue of abrasive faults on account of the luminous brilliance of…

SIENA: THE RISE OF PAINTING National Gallery 8th March to 22nd June On 9th June 1311, the 7ft-by-13ft central panel of Duccio's Maestà was carried in procession from his Sienese studio to be installed in the cathedral. When the whole thing was assembled, the panel of the Virgin and Child in glory, surrounded by saints, was further surrounded and backed by more than 40 smaller panels telling the story of Christ's life and the Passion. It was in Siena, then – not the rival city, Florence – that the Renaissance was launched as far as painting is concerned. During the 18th century, such art was out of fashion. So the Maestà was dismantled. Although some of the front panels are still in situ, others from the rear and predella were…

COME HOME AGAIN TO WALES Having noticed my recent election to the chairmanship of WWCG, several friends raised their bushy or pencilled eyebrows. Why? Because if you google the above four letters, you'll be delivered into the blessed arms of the Worldwide Church of God. But it's not that Adventist church in America I've become leader of. Coincidentally, though, that institution was founded by a newspaper advertising manager, a role that appears (way down) on my own CV. And, to this day, it meets on Saturdays, which my WWCG also does. Enough teasing. We are West Wales Country Gardeners, a small group of keen gardeners based in the Principality's south-west counties of Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire. The godly WWCG was founded in California in 1933. We are younger – a later-20th-century…

ALEXANDERS The plant takes its name from a city in Egypt, or from a famous Macedonian general, or it is a corruption of the Latin. There may not be a definitive answer, but it is called alexanders. It is a herb and vegetable once widely grown but now largely confined to the hedgerows. I have often seen alexanders in Cornish and East Anglian hedges in spring, growing near the sea and standing about four feet tall, with clusters of yellowish flowers in umbrella shapes. It has the scent of celery, but I have never tried eating it. I now learn that every part of the plant is edible – seeds, leaves, stems and roots – which suggests to me that alexanders should be revived in the vegetable garden. Though it…

GO BACK TO YOUR ROOTS Maturity comes into its own in the kitchen when there's nothing growing in the fields. Roots are subterranean survival food – nature's way of getting herself through the cold months. They can all too easily be overlooked when everything is available from everywhere on supermarket shelves all year round. When choosing in the farmer's market or anywhere else where the goods are not enclosed in plastic, look for firmness and an absence of sprouting, and keep your purchases in the fridge if you're not going to cook them straight away. Roots sprout enthusiastically as soon as they're out of the cold store and into the central heating. Wouldn't you? Elderly carrots To serve hot, slice finely and cook in a lidded pan with a splash…

ODE TO DORSETSHIRE Eighty years ago, a couple nicknaming themselves Mouse and Jumbo set off on a pre-war gastronomic tour of Dorset. I know this because the Dorset Archives Trust recently bought Mouse's diary, which laments 'dully lit dining rooms, inferior port and the usual devastating English salads'. So no surprises there, but an Oxford professor of English Literature has dubbed it 'an invaluable trove', in the tradition of Pepys, when all Mouse does is to enjoy scoffing at locals – especially in my parish of Corfe Castle. She has rivers of contempt for Swanage's 'bright young things', who are 'large, vulgar and determined to enjoy themselves at all costs'. They must have all been down at my Aunt Nancy's hotel, the Wolfeton; her tipple of choice was sparkling red…

DOUBLE DIAMOND'S COMEBACK Double Diamond is not a beer that many will recall with fondness. It was highly promoted in the 1970s. In a precursor of textspeak, its beermats were emblazoned with such slogans as Q4ADD and IOUADD. It was one of a slew of top-pressure, characterless keg beers, among them Whitbread Tankard and Watney's Red Barrel. They may have been triumphs of advertising and marketing but owed very little to the art of the brewer. It represented everything that the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) was fighting against: fizzy, chilled, pasteurised and advertised on national television with a catchy jingle: 'Double Diamond works wonders, works wonders, works wonders.' At CAMRA beer festivals, someone had the bright idea of selling badges that bore the legend DD IS K9P. They proudly…

LONG-LIFE RUNNERS At my local parkrun the other day I fell into conversation with a fellow silver-haired plodder. 'Have you read The Race Against Time?' he asked, looking me up and down. 'It's the absolute bible for the runner who's getting on a bit, like you.' Well, I have now. And my fellow jogger is right. The author, Richard Askwith, has delivered a most brilliant piece of writing. Part memoir, part journey of discovery, it is a superb, unputdownable account of what it is like still to be running well into your sixties. And beyond. Well beyond, in the case of Stanisław Kowalski, who, at a Masters Athletics Competition in 2015, set the world record for the fastest 100mph sprint for those aged over 105. Mind, he was the only…

HOW SAFE IS YOUR DRIVING? A frosty morning: a sprinkling of snow; frozen puddles on the lanes, some concealing potholes. Then round the bend sped an oncoming Audi TT. Confronted at about head height by the iron girder of a bumper on my old Defender, the androgynous driver slammed on the anchors and veered this way and that until seeking refuge on the verge. Fortunately, I was doing less than 20mph and we missed by inches. Near misses, albeit less dramatic, are a feature of everyday driving. During a recent 1,500-mile round trip between one end of the country and the other, much of it on motorways, I was struck by how often one is just a couple of feet away from the thundering wheels of 40-ton trucks. If one…

Save your family photo albums for ever

What on earth do you do with old photographs? Many of us have become the inadvertent custodians of ancient family photograph albums; rarely, if ever, looked at, but too precious to throw away. One local family solved this problem by generously giving to our village dozens of photographs of the houses and inhabitants from about 1903. Fascinating – but how could we share them? There is a technological solution, but it's not perfect. I spent a day slowly copying all the pictures, editing and annotating the results, and then uploading them all to the village website. It has been popular, but this is only a temporary solution. The photographs have survived for over 12 decades at no cost to anyone. Will our village website exist in another 120 years' time?…

Energy inefficiency

This year's 8th January was a still, cold day in the UK, and the nation's electricity system came uncomfortably close to blackouts. Quite how close is disputed: very close, according to one expert observer who plots the complexities of the generation of juice to your mains socket. Not really close at all, according to the government body in charge of keeping the lights on. Maintaining constant electricity requires a complex system of balancing suppliers. Keeping track of the cornucopia of information published every day is what turns David Turver on. Much of this is provided by the National Energy System Operator (NESO), which has insisted there was no real problem on 8th January 2025. Mr Turver disagrees. There was almost no wind – something that happens uncomfortably frequently during cold…

Exclusive visit to Stratford-upon-Avon

Working with the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, we have put together an exclusive tour of Stratford which is not available to the general public. We will be staying at the Arden Hotel and taking our meals in the best of the town's eateries. The trust has organised private access to historic sites including Shakespeare's Birthplace and family homes. You will be shown rare treasures from their world-class collections, usually unseen by the public. This unforgettable experience offers a unique window onto Shakespeare's life in Stratford. Sign up now for the last few places. ITINERARY Tuesday 13th May 10:02 Depart from Marylebone; arrive 11:38 at Warwick Parkway. Transfer to Arden Hotel in Stratford and walk to the Vintner for lunch. Welcome talk by Penelope, Viscountess Cobham CBE, and Luke Purser, the Chairman…

Exclusive visit to Stratford-upon-Avon

Pied flycatcher

The biggest thrill I had from the 30 bird species seen over 40 years in my north London garden was when I saw a dazzling male pied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca). As with other hole-nesting species, it will use nest boxes and has even been recorded nesting underground in deserted mammalian abodes. The female's contrasting camouflage plumage makes it 'a very dull little bird' – David Bannerman's description in his magisterial The Birds of the British Isles (1953-63). Pied flycatchers migrate to Europe in summer from West Africa. The bird's UK stronghold is Wales; it frequents only western pockets in England and Scotland. It is not seen in the Isle of Man or Ireland. Elsewhere in the UK, it is a bird of passage; hence my sighting in a Camden garden.…

Pied flycatcher

Magic isle mystery tour

The travel bug lives on. It started over 75 years ago, when I was sailing the seas, aged six. My father, an RAF doctor who knew his tropical medicine, had been posted to Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia. School was only in the mornings, with every afternoon at the swimming pool. I had a pet chameleon. I've never looked back from those exotic days. However much of the world one explores – and, speaking on cruises, Michael [Howard, the former Tory leader] and I have done a fair bit, from Papua New Guinea to the Amazon and Manaus – there was still one remote corner whose mystique and extraordinary features held a unique appeal. It was a hell of a way to travel for a pair of oldies, but if not…

Magic isle mystery tour

Byzantium via Holland Park

There is no more exotic house in the British Isles than Debenham House at 8 Addison Road, West London. Listed Grade I, it was designed in 1905 by Halsey Ricardo for Sir Ernest Ridley Debenham, 1st Bt (1865-1952), the department-store owner. At the time, he had the terrific total of 170 outlets nationwide. A new biography of the architect, Halsey Ricardo – A Life in Arts & Crafts, by Mark Bertram, is out this month. This is a house that glistens from top to toe: its outside with brilliant white Carrara-ware tiles by Royal Doulton; inside with blue and green Burmantofts glazed brickwork. Its interior is covered with a wealth of mosaics and marble. The mixture of bricks and tiles emulates his former triumph, Howrah Station in India, otherwise known…

Byzantium via Holland Park

The Flying Scotsman

Did you know Succession would be such a hit? Jesse Armstrong and Adam McKay pitched the show to me and I thought, 'Wow, this is going to be great.' Was Logan Roy based on Murdoch? Not at all. Of all the characters I've played, I thought Logan was one of the most misunderstood because all he wanted was a successor for his business and he has these three hopeless children. Of course he got angry. Where was Succession filmed? New York, Dubrovnik, Siena and Florence. Do you mind being asked to tell people to f*** off in the style of Logan Roy? It gets a bit boring. Do you prefer film and TV to the stage? Theatre is hard work because it's live and it's nightly. Television – you get…

The Flying Scotsman

Across 1 Person beginning to get upset over tree (8) 5 Butcher's fine cuts hit us badly (6) 9 Seeming reliable, and at home with golf (8) 10 Decorative gilding found in essentially blue room after renovation (6) 12 Flight from Italy taken by celebrity with lawsuit (9) 13 Sulked, being topless and exposed (5) 14 One's levy halved for land offshore (4) 16 Free energy contained in explosive missile (7) 19 Looking more drained about a very unnecessary fuss (7) 21 Signals last of sugar to be removed from preserves (4) 24 New first lady before year's end? I don't believe it! (5) 25 Criteria designed on golf for old people (9) 27 Where a camper may be determined (6) 28 Nail it and go off such design (8)…

Moron crossword 450

Across 1 Raise (anchor) (5) 4 Sly (7) 8 Flightless bird (3) 9 Japanese warrior (5) 10 Break into pieces (7) 11 Note cleric (anag) (10) 14 Put up with (6) 16 Arboreal lizard (6) 18 The major portion (5,5) 22 Made haste (7) 23 Snap, pic (5) 24 Break, hole (3) 25 Tiredness (7) 26 Long (for) (5) Down 1 Strayed from path (8) 2 Smutty insinuation (8) 3 Courage (5) 4 Tradition (6) 5 Approaching (7) 6 Enthusiastic about (4) 7 Apparel (4) 12 Shape of curve (8) 13 Remove; demolish (4,4) 15 Barrier (7) 17 Tense (2,4) 19 Drippy (5) 20 Trained cook (4) 21 Determination; clench (teeth) (4) Moron 448 answers: Across: 3 Eggs, 7 Uber, 8 Rant (Exuberant), 9 Aorta, 10 Otis, 11 Nougat, 13…

Moron crossword 450

I can't resist sharing this ending from the Gold Cup Final, shown to me by my friend Derek Patterson of Kent. Patterson and I go back a long way, since the World Junior Tennis Championships in 1989 – well, actually, we won the very recreational side tennis doubles tournament at the World Junior Bridge Championships in Nottingham. Dealer East North Vunerable Declarer, Patterson, won West's ten-of-hearts lead with the queen and led up his singleton club. West rose with the ace and continued with his second heart. Winning dummy's king, declarer cashed the king of clubs shedding his remaining heart, ruffed the knave of clubs (East shedding a diamond) and led a spade to the queen. East won the king of spades and led another spade. Winning the nine, declarer…

IN COMPETITION No 316 you were invited to write a poem called The Bus. Sheila Gray took a speedy country bus: 'I breathe in, hoping it will help/To make the bus seem slimmer/As it skims the hedgerow branches/And becomes a coarse hedge-trimmer.' Vivien Brown gave voice to the tour-bus guide, 'Jolly Jeff, with a J', and Janine Stratton remembered the story from Dead of Night about 'Room for one inside, sir'. Commiserations to them and to David Silverman, Heather Uebel, Andrew Lacey, Veronica Colin, Gail White, Peter Jarvis, G M Southgate, Alan Bradwell, Christine Acres, William Wood, Toddy Hoare and John McTavish, and congratulations to those printed below, each of whom wins £25, with the bonus prize of The Chambers Dictionary going to I White, inspired by a painting now…

On the trail of Stephenson's Rocket

It was a wintry late afternoon when I arrived at Geltsdale. Wet, windy, muddy and very, very grey. This is Pennine Cumbria, an austere, bleak and peaceful world away from the bustle and easy beauty of the Lake District. I had planned a route. But, at the car park beside these two hill farms that have become a vast RSPB nature reserve, I discovered there were a multitude of trails – many more paths than on the OS map. Sometimes you just want to follow someone else's trail. So I did. I combined the Forest Head Quarry Trail with the Stagsike Trail to make a circuit of the nature reserve in what was billed as a three-hour walk. I began by following in the footsteps of the Rocket. This was…

On the trail of Stephenson's Rocket

VIRGINIA IRONSIDE

War of the wills Q Why on earth don't relatives share items left after a member of the family has died – each maybe having the item for six months/a year maybe and then passing it over to another relative for another appointed length of time? If the item then needs to be sold, the proceeds can be split in half. Wouldn't this arrangement put a stop to all this stupid and petty quarrelling at such times? I always find it very sad and upsetting when folk quarrel over items at such distressing times, and it seems to me quite unnecessary to quarrel anyway. Share! It can work! Name and address supplied A On the face of it, this seems an obvious solution but, unfortunately, although it might work with…

VIRGINIA IRONSIDE

Among the contributors

Our cover illustration is by Quentin Blake, 92, cartoonist, caricaturist and children's writer, who has illustrated over 300 books, including many by Roald Dahl. Nanette Newman was a winner at the 2024 Oldie of the Year Awards. She is an author and actress, appearing in nine films directed by her husband, Bryan Forbes. John Humphrys presented Today from 1987 to 2019 and Mastermind from 2003 to 2021. Dave Robinson is the founding father of the grassroots pub rock movement. He co-founded Stiff Records in 1976, signing Ian Dury, Elvis Costello, Madness, Tracey Ullman and many more. Peter York is a social commentator and author, best known for co-authoring The Sloane Ranger Handbook with Ann Barr. His latest book, about the culture wars, is A Dead Cat on Your Table.…

Among the contributors

I have the privileged position of being the friend and agent of a small number of oldies, many of them centenarians or near-centenarians. Knowing them has enriched my life. As a child, I developed a lifelong love of old films, watching with my late grandmother. TV was live then, so I feigned illness to escape school and be back in time to watch the afternoon showings. I was enthralled by Rebecca, made in 1940, when my grandmother was a teenager in Blitz-ravaged London. Joan Fontaine plays the timid, near-simpering narrator Mrs de Winter. I remember being transfixed as Fontaine, wearing a fetching 1940s felt hat, stands her ground with Mrs Van Hopper, her American employer, who has just learned of her companion's engagement to Max de Winter and does her…

Outrageous oldies

Nicky Haslam, contributor to The Oldie, has been an inspiration to us all for years. I mean years. When I started writing for Harpers &Queen, just as Anna Wintour was leaving it to take over America, Nicky came as a fringe benefit. We saw him everywhere, including on the Chelsea punk front lines. He was sublimely confident about his taste and never followed any of the rather tight-arsed dress-code do's and don'ts for the mature man, which I set out in these pages in 2023. Nicky thinks, like Osbert Lancaster's cartoon character, Lady Littlehampton, “If it's me, it's U”. So he wears all sorts of unlikely things. He's never aimed to fit in. Later, he even had a facelift – something my 2023 piece advised against as un-English. However, his…

Outrageous oldies

A tiny room of one's own

A room of my own at well over 80 – how fabulous is that? The middle daughter found it. 'Studio-flat, high ceiling, stairs to a sleeping-platform, suits a posh student.' She laughed. She knows her mother well. Perfect. I bought the place sight unseen. The year was 2017. The farmhouse where I'd lived for 25 years in the wilds of Wales had found a buyer. And, with children long gone, husband departed to the great writing-room in the sky and grandchildren embarking on lives of their own, it was time to re-locate. I needed to find somewhere that didn't have five bedrooms and a leaking roof, and stash away whatever cash was left over (not much). Downsizing is a lot less demanding when there's no one around to argue over…

A tiny room of one's own

I'm a brilliant, modest actor

No amount of talent can get you to the top in showbusiness unless you understand the rules. First, any performer who shows diffidence about their ability is lying and cowardly. The self-effacing actor is giving the worst performance of his or her life. It doesn't fool anybody. The surest sign that you're a complete ponce is saying that you don't take yourself too seriously. Rule 1 of Showbiz Cut the tired old modesty act, OK? Rule 2, and there's no getting away from this Anyone who's good at comedy is by definition a total bastard. To get a laugh, then another, then topping it with the next; is controlling people. The only person in the room not laughing is the performer. Look into their eyes: cold as ice. Don't believe…

I'm a brilliant, modest actor

Wheely Wild Ride

I always enjoy a trip to Halfords, as there's usually something I want to buy. An adult push scooter (costing from £45). What better toy for an old boy? Even better for an old boy's wife. Armed with our new acquisitions, we quickly got into swapping the 'push off leg', and were soon skimming down the pavements, enjoying horrified and admiring looks in equal measure. Our shared injuries of knackered right knee and double hip replacement were forgotten as we forged along at lightning speed. A runner's high, not experienced for 20 years, was suddenly back. Journeys of 20 minutes or more, now took seven. We re-engaged our competitive edge, whizzing through gaps in traffic and past slow-moving pedestrians. Light to carry, the scooters fit easily into a car boot,…

Wheely Wild Ride

It's not a sight you often see. An elderly lady tripping unsteadily along London streets at midnight in high heels and leather jacket, having been to a raucous rock concert. She'll arrive home in Oxford at 3am and try to beat the student revellers to a taxi home. So who is this old lady? Why, it's me! A few years ago, instead of saying an automatic no to invitations and events that get me out of the house at unsociable hours, I decided to say yes. This 'yes' sees me dolling myself up in sequin tops and granny dancing, sometimes to the cringing embarrassment of my grandchildren – when, in most people's eyes, I should probably be tucked up in bed at nine with a hot water bottle, a mug…

My Bigger Splash

As a child, I always fancied taking a garden hose and spraying every adult within reach so hard they could never get past the spray to close me down. But it's taken 60 years before I've actually had the opportunity. It's midnight and I'm standing in what could be a waterpark – but is actually the centre of Lanjarón, a small Spanish market town. Teams of firemen are aiming industrial hosepipes at everyone who moves or tries to shelter behind a pillar. I've had special dispensation to use a hosepipe, which could blow a man 50 yards down the street. This is the Fiesta del Agua y del Jamón – the Festival of Water and Ham. We have the mountain ham the next day. My hosepipe victims have already been…

My Bigger Splash

The essential oil

Bette Davis, the American film star, said, when being interviewed about her career that had spanned many years, 'Old age is not for sissies.' I was reminded of that quote a few days ago while trying to open a carton of chicken and vegetable soup. I struggled for more than 20 minutes. I pushed where it said, 'Open here.' I prodded – I stabbed dangerously, first with scissors, then a knife, fingers aching, with lots of swearing. I finally admitted defeat and hurled it in the rubbish bin, and thought how right Bette was. Now, at 90, I am very aware that so many things, which I just did easily some years ago, have now become a bit of a challenge. Looking in a magnifying mirror first thing in the…

The essential oil

Wonderful today

When I was a model aged 18, I was pretty and life was fabulous. I got one job after another. Nothing was nicer than waking up, doing full make-up, including false eyelashes, and then going out to greet the day and photographers. And then, one day, I got a really special job, a part in the Beatles first film, A Hard Day's Night (1964). George Harrison asked me out, and I thought, wow! This was amazing. Reader, I married him. Every day I carried on putting on my make-up because I needed to look good. Eventually I realised it was my insecurities that made me wear it. Make-up had become a mask to hide behind and I thought nobody would love me without it. Anyway, two husbands later, I'm now…

Wonderful today

'Nature has not intended mankind to work from eight in the morning until midnight,' wrote Winston Churchill in The Gathering Storm, the first volume of his war memoirs, 'without that refreshment of blessed oblivion which, even if it only lasts 20 minutes, is sufficient to renew all the vital forces.' As an undergraduate, I decided to put those words into practice. For most days over the past 43 years, I have taken an afternoon nap, although admittedly they have tended to be longer than 20 minutes, – usually twice that. Churchill was right: a nap can renew enough of the vital forces to turn one working day into two. Churchill certainly practised what he preached. 'Never to my knowledge,' his son-in-law Vic Oliver wrote in his memoirs, Mr Showbusiness, 'not…

I was thrilled with my wheeze. After a few Rum Negronis too many, I had promised to celebrate my son Ludo's recent 21st birthday and my impending 65th with a brief but determined assault à deux on Las Vegas, that most iniquitous of all dens of iniquity. We couldn't wait. Mrs Ray, though, was far from impressed. 'Any drugs, hookers or tattoos and don't even think about coming home,' she warned. Although his elder brother, a staunch teetotaller, takes after nobody in our family I can think of, Ludo is his parents' son and, I'm delighted to say, has all the makings of an old soak. On being told that he had to make the most of his gap year and do something useful, Ludo promptly enrolled on a course…

My immortal diet

It was a typical morning in the BBC Washington bureau on a slow news day in 1972. 'Typical' meant digging out the Gallo Hearty Burgundy from the filing cabinet for a quick glass at about noon, then booking a table at the latest trendy restaurant for a martini or two, a decent wine with lunch and port or brandy to finish off. Then back to the office. That particular day, all hell had broken loose. Watergate, the biggest story in the world, had taken a dramatic turn while I was at lunch. London wanted me to do a live broadcast on the new-fangled satellite feed – at ten grand for ten minutes. Wow! What a chance to prove that I, the BBC's youngest TV foreign correspondent, was a worthy successor…

My immortal diet

My alcoholic diet

Of any hundred people struck down with a cardiac arrest outside hospital, only ten will reach A&E alive, ambulance availability permitting. Of those ten, five will die quickly – in the corridors no doubt – and three will suffer brain damage from the oxygen deprivation. Only two will survive to fight another day. Evelyn Waugh didn't. He dropped dead on the lavatory at Combe Florey. Peter Sellers didn't. He turned bright blue and collapsed in the Dorchester. The other day, comedian Tony Slattery, whom we all loved in Who's Line Is It Anyway, had a fatal heart attack at 65. I did survive, after my dramatic myocardial infarction in Morrison's carpark in Hastings, which the locals still talk about. All these statistics ought to be sobering, except that is not…

My alcoholic diet

I used to have a problem with age. It started in my teens and dogged me until I hit mid-century. No matter what I wore or who I was with, I looked and sounded like a very tall and very pretentious 12-year-old. On the phone, on hearing my squeaky voice, people asking for me insisted I 'go and call Mummy.' I was refused entry to bars and clubs long after I passed 40. Age was something that happened to others. When I was a granny at 36, I still looked like a kid. With my baby face, I thought getting old was something that only happened to other people. Then so much happened to me that the next time I really looked hard in a mirror, I found to my…

King of the Road

I've spent 60 years on the road all over the world, listening to bands do their thing live. The spirit is still there and strong, even as the flesh gets weaker. My musical adventures began in the early '60s, when I photographed young beat groups influenced by the Beatles. Somehow, I opened a club in Dublin where anyone could play and the fans flocked. In the '70s, I started a grassroots musical movement in the back rooms of pubs. Bands played two or three sets of their own songs alongside short covers of other people's songs. Back then, American-owned major record labels weren't yet preoccupied with glam bands and all that non-organic mainstream bullshit they churned out for hits. I started signing pub rock bands to my label, Stiff Records.…

King of the Road

The greatest surprise for me as I grow older is the increasing intensity of emotion. Maybe it truly is the dying of the light. I mistakenly thought that feelings of passion, loss and love, would gradually become numbed over time. The very opposite is true. I am constantly overwhelmed. Giving up a car came as a great relief and release. I loved my honey-coloured Beetle, but now I walk everywhere, and am much healthier and happier on foot. I had turned into an old witch, railing at innocent motorists who mistakenly parked across my measly drive. I have come to prefer night over the day. It is the element of danger and secrecy that entices me. Hearing the tawny owl calling for a mate, I close my front door behind…

Fly south for winter

Why slog all the way to Nicaragua as an octogenarian? I went at the tender age of 75 in 2014. I was with my youngest son, Dominic, an ex-film director, who started a travel company specialising in bespoke regional trips. He lives outside beautiful Granada, Central America's oldest Spanish colonial city, with Stefano, his ten-year-old son. I used to try and help Dominic with his large, glorious, as yet uncultivated, tropical garden. After 8am, it was too hot. Dominic's housekeeper, Adilia, cried, 'Granny, you are too old and your face is red!' She eventually became friends when I wanted to buy presents for my grandchildren. We went to the local market together on the bus. Buses are hot, crammed with babies, livestock and parcels, but age wins every time with…

Fly south for winter

Masters of the art of growing old disgracefully have several common traits: passion for life, creativity and a healthy dollop of mischief with our long-developed wit and wisdom. Significantly, we've also learned to stop worrying about the things we cannot change. Overthinking, and the anxiety this brings, can be left to the young folk as their generational cross to bear. We oldies know better than to fret. It's easy to see why many regard Donald Trump's re-election as problematic. His ruthless partisanship, questionable morality and rejection of inclusion will likely harm many. However, despite his use of fear to supress opponents, I cannot regard Trump: The Return as the horror movie sequel many believe it will be. First, separate what Trump says and does. His deal-making modus operandi involves the…

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