Girls like Diana Spencer, armed with nothing more than a guinea-pig-rearing certificate, proud to say in that old Sloane way that she was ‘as thick as two short planks,’ became the exception as girls from...

There was a time when formal clothes were one of life’s great pleasures, as well as a way of describing instantly a man’s status wealth. Toffs wore the most, the proles the least. Fast forward...

When you get inside a literary novel you feel that the author, more often than not, just doesn’t know enough about things. They haven’t been around enough – novelists never go anywhere. Once I discovered...

Nobody knows anything. I deal with people in all walks of life, some of whom should have some idea of what they’re doing. And they’re all clueless. It’s astonishing that any bridges stay up, or...

There are pop managers, and then there’s Simon Cowell, who isn’t gay, Jewish or particularly riveting. He’s not without interest but he doesn’t exactly have the hinterland of, say, Brian Epstein.

Like lots of baby boomers, I was brought up on archaic anthropomorphism. Upstanding Christian dogs. Rabbits with family values. Because the ancient texts and pictures were sacred – Potter, Milne and the rest. Even concerned...

I can remember when anything further downtown New York than Canal Street was risky and the whole area still looked like a ’70s cop movie location; when the original loft-owners were more dash-than-cash, artistic types.

In the 1940s, cigarettes would be shown in classy situations, endorsed by celebrities – real A-list Hollywood stars in America – the ads would make claims about tobacco quality or manufacturing science and, bizarrely, some...

As one of the most successful and longest running bands in Christian music, Audio Adrenaline has made tremendous impact in the lives of their loyal listeners. They have also been a strong influence and positive...

Fashion people think that the careful Nice companies are boring beyond measure. (Nice people think fashionistas look silly and should Get A Life).

There is an interior style we intellectuals and design policy wonks know as Haut Euro Pooftastic, which really takes the biscuit.

People are fretful about lifestyle retailing because the idea that anyone’s immortal soul and deepest longings can be quite so readily anticipated and consolidated with several hundred thousand other like-minded types is worrying.

I cling to the basic set of tenets laid out in Tom Wolfe’s ‘New Journalism’ – to get out there like the great French novelists of the 19th century and study life. I am a...