Diary

‘What!? But they won’t let you in!’ and ‘What!? But they’ll detain you at the border!’ and ‘What!? But they’re all nuts over there!’ were just some of the responses from friends and colleagues at my announcement that I was heading to the US for three and a half weeks’ work. But my visa was

The coming week will see the last major commemoration of a second world war anniversary – 80 years since VE-Day – which a handful of surviving veterans will attend. It is unjust that VJ-Day in August will attract much less attention, but so did the Far East campaigns, much to the contemporary chagrin of the

The weather in Bath has been preposterously good, with the Royal Crescent glowing in a soft, lemony light. I’m here for my How to Fail live podcast tour. I launched the podcast back in 2018, which, by podcasting standards, makes me practically geriatric. At the time, I felt like a failure (divorce, infertility, that kind

Lent did not, I confess, start well. Cheltenham fell in its first week, and the Gold Cup is hardly the place for the rigours of Lenten discipline to begin. Some might say it is hardly the place for a clergyman at all. Peter Hitchens once commented on my clerical collar – stiff, crisp, linen –

The cherry blossom was at its finest as I made my last early morning trip through Regent’s Park to Broadcasting House to present Radio 3’s Breakfast. When hire-bikes arrived in London, the planners were thoughtful enough to install a docking station outside my flat. I have used the heavy cycles for my commute ever since.

When I told a Westminster political editor that my novel NUNC! was about the prophet Simeon and the Nunc Dimittis, he said: ‘Who? The what?’ I reminded him that the Nunc was one of the great canticles along with the Magnificat, Te Deum, etc. More blank looks. It is startling how scriptural knowledge has faded.

Kyiv ‘It doesn’t surprise me that they’re abolishing the Ministry of Education,’ my old friend Dima told me. ‘Judging by what Steve Witkoff said on the Fox channel, neither history nor geography are taught in America.’ Team Trump’s energetic but purposefully misdirected attempts to push the negotiation processes forward have left Ukrainians in shock. Each

Two months into President Donald Trump’s second term, the habitual liberal hysteria about his rollercoaster presidential style is reaching shrieking banshee levels again. But as always with my friend in Pennsylvania Avenue, I urge patience and a focus on what he does rather than what comes out of his inflammatory machine-gun mouth. I sense cold,

I’ve been head down for the past few weeks, preparing for my one-man show. The title is catchy – Nigel Havers Talking B*ll*cks. I’m not sure this was a good idea because in every interview that I have done, I’ve been told that we can’t use this word on air. I seem to hear nothing

To the Queen Anne splendour of the British ambassador’s residence in Washington for Peter Mandelson’s welcome party as our man in D.C. Downing Street did their utmost to stop lobby hacks from attending since they didn’t want us to report anything that might distract from Keir Starmer’s ring-kissing at the White House the next day.

A couple of months ago, an invitation arrived. Would I like a room at the Savoy for the Baftas? I could attend the awards, guzzle champagne, walk the red carpet alongside Demi Moore and Ariana Grande and so on. Sadly, I replied, I was already booked up that weekend as a judge for a very

Monday, and Camden council have yet again failed to empty my food waste bin. They never miss my rubbish or dry recycling – it’s only ever the smelly stuff. I give my neighbour’s brown bin a little kick. Emptied! This feels personal. I call the council. ‘Look, this is a nightmare,’ I say. ‘This is

They say it is good to learn new skills as you get older. Well here goes. I am about to arrive in New Haven, Connecticut, to teach as a senior fellow at Yale University. Last time I taught anything to a class it was at Sunday school more than half a century ago. Arriving late

There’s no statute of limitations on reporting a government minister’s embarrassing oops-a-daisy. It’s no good them doing a duck-dive, hoping that by the time they resurface everyone will have forgotten all about it. I remember after the Salisbury poisonings in 2018, Gavin Williamson, who was defence secretary at the time, appeared genuinely thrown when I

My beloved 1967 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop guitar is now locked away until December at the earliest. For the past eight years, I have had the terrifying privilege of dragging my axe (as we guitarists call our instruments) on stage to perform in a series of Christmas gigs (as we musicians call such performances) with

‘Traitor!’ the woman yelled at me the instant I entered the beautifully decorated living room of a famous actress. It was a Twelfth Night celebration, and the room was full of glamorous friends and acquaintances. ‘What?’ I replied, bemused. ‘That photo!’ she screamed, ‘How could you take that picture with all those Republicans?’ Over Christmas

I am now well into my second pregnancy. Having conceived through IVF the first time, we were fortunate to have another embryo stored away in a freezer. It is incredible that a tiny cluster of frozen cells, already a life, can survive, suspended in time for years. The science behind the process continues to amaze me.

I was in Sweden a few weeks ago, where my music was presented in Stockholm in the most recent International Composer Festival. One of the orchestral works performed was my football-themed ‘Eleven’ (11 players, melodies of 11 notes, chords of 11 pitches and various football chants woven into the fabric of the score). I’m not

‘Ring out the old, ring in the new…’ This was the year I discovered that one of my ancestors had been a housemaid deflowered, impregnated and turfed out on to the street by her self-evidently villainous employer – but also that another had been land agent to Lord Tennyson. The perfect incentive for me, then,