On my father’s side, I am related to Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson, neither of them inconsiderable figures in the political arena, though one must learn, I suppose, to overlook their deficiencies in the facial hair department. On the military side, my distinguished great-great-grandfather General Gore L. Vidal was at Custer’s side at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Many believe it to have been General Gore’s personal message of encouragement to the troops (‘TO THE FIRST MAN WHO GETS OUT OF HERE ALIVE, A FREE SHAMPOO AND SET’) that swung the balance in that least dainty of skirmishes. In turn, General Gore’s great-nephew, Sassoon Vidal, the founder of the first literary salon, emerged as the major poet of the First World War, no anthology complete without his moving lines: ‘The shells burst all about us/Spraying mud o’er our uniforms/Clean on this bleak morn.’
My English critics have attempted to ignore the illustrious and influential pedigree from which I so deftly sprang. But then no one of any breeding cares any more about that inconsiderable little offshore isle, sinking beneath the weight of its own – how shall I put it? – snobbery.
GORE VIDAL
What is it about books that makes them so truly great to read? I think it’s the way the words are printed on every page, the right way up and in just the right order.
This means you can start reading on the first page and then continue reading through the middle pages all the way to the last.
Here are some of my absolute favourite books to read.
War by Leo Tolstoy. A great read.
(And why not buy the two-volume edition which includes Peace by the same great author?)
Middlemarch by George Eliot. Another great read. Hundreds of pages of great words and punctuation, and all beautifully laid out.
Shakespeare by Shakespeare. He has so many great lines. ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ ‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.’ ‘I am the Walrus.’ ‘My heart will go on.’
They’re part of the language.
Next week, I’m planning to learn how to peel an orange with a world expert fruit psychologist.
GWYNETH PALTROW
January 31st
JM* comes round. For half an hour, he holds my hand and whispers sweet nothings in my ear. ‘Essentially,’ he coos, ‘these proposals for renewing the essential health of our domestic economy are the same as those I previously mentioned…’
I am overcome with desire. He is so sure of himself, so knowledgeable. I want to know more. ‘Go on, go on!’ I beg him.
‘…and they represent,’ he continues, a little breathlessly, ‘a significant initiative in the formation of an important and imaginative element in our strategy to improve the supply performance of the economy…’
I am overwhelmed. At this point, he digs deep into his trousers and pulls out his pocket calculator. I’ve never seen one like it. ‘Now, if we are talking about 31/4 per cent annual growth over a five-year fixed period, then that comes to…’ he says, becoming very, very tactile, tapping all the right buttons with the dexterity of an expert.
After he has come out with a final figure, I dash to the BBC to record an interview on Pebble Mill at One. I dress as a crème caramel to launch our End That Fatty Diet initiative.
EDWINA CURRIE
Good morning, it’s 5.15 a.m. and I have just scratched my right elbow as it was itching a bit. I sit at my desk, wondering what to write. I reflect that there is no reason at all not to start with my usual salute. So I write, Good morning, it’s 5.15 a.m.
What next? I am in no mind to leave it there.
Fortuitously, I feel an itch on my right elbow. I scratch it. This gives me something potentially interesting to record, so I decide to insert the additional information that I have just scratched my right elbow as it was itching a bit.
A vista opens. I can now write about my decision to write about the fact that I scratched my right elbow, together with the reasons behind this impulsive action. So I put on record that a fresh vista has opened out, as I am now able to write about my decision to write about the fact that I scratched my right elbow, and the reasons behind that impulsive action.
NICHOLSON BAKER
February 1st
February is the month I devote to rearranging the cushions on the sofa in my dressing room, and I do so without any help whatsoever from our staff. As you might imagine, it is quite a job, there being no fewer than four cushions, each of a different colour. Thus one might choose to arrange the navy blue on one side, the pink on the other, with pale yellow and Lincoln green somewhere in the middle, only to find that, on second thoughts, it actually looks better to have the pink somewhere in the middle, with the pale yellow to the left, the navy blue to the right, leaving room for the Lincoln green to remain in the middle, only this time next to the pink and not to the pale yellow, unless of course it is between the pink and the pale yellow.
Whenever I have met them, I have found the British public extraordinarily ignorant of the demands and pressures with which we in the so-called ‘upper classes’ (how I hate all this ‘class’ nonsense!) are confronted day by day. I sometimes think that the ‘ordinary’ people, for all their immense pluck, fail to appreciate the many onerous tasks that befall the Stately Home owner, and I welcome this opportunity to ‘put them in the picture’. Rearranging the cushions on the sofa in my dressing room is one such task, and the time and planning involved are not to be underestimated. First, I have one of our staff nip out to the local shops to buy me a range of excellent new French devices known as ‘crayons’, which are what we used to know as pencils, but with brightly coloured leads. I then spend a week or so measuring out on a piece of paper and colouring in four squares – pink, pale yellow, Lincoln green and navy blue – and a further week cutting them out. This leaves me just a fortnight to juggle these four coloured squares around this way and that, until I am perfectly satisfied that I have ‘come up’ with the best new arrangement. It all makes for a highly enjoyable topic of dinner conversation too, and come February our guests delight in spending an hour and a half or so over the soup arguing the pros and cons of, say, having the pink on the left or the pale yellow on the right, and thoroughly productive it is too.
ANDREW, DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE
February 2nd
What a decade the Sixties is turning out to be. It was tonight, in that steamy liberated atmosphere of sexual awakening, that I first set eyes on Harold Pinter. We were at a party. It was, as I recall, a fondue party. None of the usual rules applied. Knives, forks, spoons: who needed them? Cutlery was dismissed as conventional, and even serviettes had been discarded. Instead, we would – wildly, madly, crazily – dip pieces of bread just any-old-how into a hot cheesy sauce. Then we would toss them into our mouths as ‘My Old Man’s a Dustman’ played suggestively in the background. The effect was electrifying.
Pinter and I went outside together. I said nothing. He said nothing. I said nothing back. He added nothing. Nothing would come between us. Pinter was already known for his pauses, but in those extraordinary