The Lost Diaries

Lady Diana Cooper was a lifelong beauty, famous for wearing impossibly large hats. I once asked her why she wore such big hats. Her reply was delightful.

In response to another question I put to her some years later, she told me that the answer was yes – but only in some respects!

I now forget what the question was. Dickie Mountbatten may have been in the room at the time. Dickie was very proud of his suede riding boots, and rightly so.

CLARISSA EDEN

March 3rd

The full history of Picasso and his vexed relations with boiled sweets must, alas, wait for a future volume, Picasso: The Too Good to Hurry Years. For the moment, let it suffice to say that he was rarely, if ever, observed sucking on a boiled sweet whilst painting, and since, when offered a Lemon Sherbet by the rich, spoiled homosexual narcissist Jean Cocteau, whose family money, incidentally, came from dry-cleaning, of all things, and whose coarse, unsophisticated father sported a singularly ill-fitting toupée, Picasso declined, saying thank you, but he had just had luncheon. Three days later he painted Woman in an Armchair, now hanging in the Musée Picasso, and some have detected a suggestion of Lemon Sherbet in the distinct yellow oval just above the woman’s right eyebrow.

JOHN RICHARDSON

March 4th

The sight of a fresh spring daffodil bursting forth into the dappled sunlight fills me with disgust and despair. What sort of a world have we created for ourselves that allows these yellowy, sickly, foul-smelling, so-called ‘flowers’ to shove their misshapen and elongated necks through the Lord’s earth and then lets their vomit-coloured petals infringe the sanctity of our own old and very dear English countryside? What have we as a nation in, I fear, a deep and irreversible decline, busily wallowing in our post-colonial cowardice, puffing our chest up and then wheezing like some bronchial old colonel, what have we as a nation come to when we allow these daffodils, these malevolent globules of terminal jaundice, all yellow, yellow, yellow, to poke their noses through our ground and into our private lives?

DENNIS POTTER

Find corpse of chick in swimmin pool. Downer. Sell house.

KEITH RICHARDS

March 5th

The anniversary: of the death of Iosif Stalin. Beast and Monster. Mass-murderer. What do we need to call him? What is it necessary to call him? Stalin is too simple: too simperbubble. In considering our selection of an appropriate word, I must first contend that the simple word ‘Stalin’ does nothing to convey the guy’s sheer horrid horridity. Let’s think again: let’s reinvent the language to form a noose around his head.

Mister Walrus Whiskers. That just about does the trick. I can candidly argue that, following a great deal of research, I know he wouldn’t want to be called Mr W-W: not one little bit. Or what about ‘Starling’? No way, José Feliciano. It sounds too like a bird: and a bird he was most certainly not.

The guy hated flying: hated it. Nor can we call him by his matey primonomenclaturalition, which is, of course, Iosif: Iosif is no mate of mine.

And why, pray, is it necessary to point out at this post-millennial juncture that Iosif Stalin – or Starling – is no mate of this fifty-two-year-old male novelist? Or, to put it another way: Novelist male old year fifty-two this of mate no is – Starling or – Stalin Iosif that juncture this at out point to necessary it is, pray, why and?

It can here be stated, boldly and fearlessly: Iosif Stalin was a very bad man. And my contention goes further, and can herein be tersely stated: he wasn’t nice at all.

MARTIN AMIS

March 6th

Buy new house with lovely clean swimmin pool. Build new upstairs room for throwin TVs out of.

KEITH RICHARDS

Women divide into two categories. The kind who does what you tell her to. And the kind who doesn’t. Frankly, I’ve got a hell of a lot of time for them both. But one or two I can’t abide.

Not long ago, I had lunch with Mother Teresa at Wilton’s. She was no bigger than the partridge on my plate. In fact, I was half-tempted to pour my remaining gravy over her. I could have downed her in a couple of mouthfuls and still had room for a decent rice pudding.

God helps those who help themselves, I advised her. You’re frankly barking up the wrong tree grubbing around the backstreets of Calcutta. No one goes there. They’re not what I’d call serious players.

Sadly, she chose not to take my advice. Small wonder she died with barely a penny to her name. With her reputation and connections, she could have expected – what? – 250, 300K?

No one likes a little person, be it man or woman. If you’re going to be a hard-hitter, you’ve got to be over 5ft 2ins. And let’s not imagine that slogging around in a grubby habit gets you anywhere, either. For all her undoubted domestic virtues, Mother Teresa would never have made the position of Sub-Editor on a national newspaper.

MAX HASTINGS

The X-Factor. Don’t get me started! When those lovely young men come on stage in their tight little trousers and sing their hearts out for Sharon, my heart melts. I truly care about every single one of them, I really do, and the public senses that, and that’s why they love me.

Just yesterday, I was being driven along by my chauffeur in our $463,000 limousine. I was in the back with my plastic surgeon Roger, who was just putting the finishing touches to my new toes (sorry, but you’ve got to have six on each foot these days if you want to be noticed). Suddenly, we hear this fucking yell from the river. A boat had capsized, and there’s five people in the water struggling for their fucking lives, bless ’em!

Call me a great big softy, but I couldn’t just leave them to drown, I’m sorry, that’s not the kind of person I am! So I get the chauffeur to park near the river, and I get out the old mirror and make sure I’m looking fan-tastic – I’d never let the fans down, they want to see me at my best – then I squeeze into my $3,000 stilettos and walk ever so sexily down to the riverside, where there’s just the one lifebelt to throw them.

The five of them are still thrashing about in the river, all fucking soggy and that, hair all over the place, only now there’s only four, bless, because one’s gone under! ‘Sorry guys, I can only rescue the one of you!’ I announce, as sweetly as possible, because I truly care about them all, and I’d dearly love to be able to save each and every one of them from drowning.

‘So which of you lovely young people is it going to be?’ I ask them. They look so adorable, all shivery and panicky and cuddly, thrashing about in the river and that. By now, they’re all so desperate, they’re screaming for help at the very tops of their super voices, they really are! Yes, they love me!

‘Decisions, decisions!’ I say, flashing my trademark smile. ‘I only wish I could save you all, you’re all so truly fabulous!’

By now another one’s gone under, and there’s just the three left –but it doesn’t make my choice any easier! ‘Ho-hum!’ I say. ‘This is one of the toughest decisions of my life. It’s truly momentous! You know what, guys? Sharon’s going to have to have herself a little sit-me-down before deciding.’

You could almost feel the tension in that river! So I have’s myself my little sit-me-down, and check on my make-up – but when I get up again, the last three have disappeared below the water!

Yes – I’d left it too late! Story of my life! I’ll never forget those young people’s faces. I’d made their day! They looked so thrilled to have met Sharon Osbourne before they drowned. I walked back to the limousine with a lovely warm feeling in my heart. See, when you’re in my position, you’ve got to put something back, you really have.

SHARON OSBOURNE

I hate pineapple. It should be banned.

GERMAINE GREER

March 7th

A hectic week ahead. After church, Mr Lucian Freud, who is a painter, arrives to paint another portrait.

He is quite old.

When I ask if he likes corgis, he tells me he does.

Good, I say. I ask him if he has been painting long.

He tells me he has.

How interesting, I say.

He doesn’t reply.

Otherwise precious little small talk. He tells me he paints pictures, mainly. A lovely hobby, I say.

I might have asked him if he wouldn’t be awfully kind and paint over that crack on the bathroom ceiling, but I forgot. They tell me he can be desperately expensive, so I think we got off lightly!