‘How do you celebrate your wedding anniversary in a lockdown?” my Mr was ruminating. I think the question is weird. The lockdown doesn’t really make any difference, since we wouldn’t have invited anyone anyway. Valentine’s Day, sure: I want to see other couples, dressed fancy, not really talking because the [...]

More than half of the UK’s small publishers fear they could be out of business by the autumn as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to research by the Bookseller, which warns of a “whole tranche of writers that either will not write, or will be unable to see their work [...]

Last year, I accomplished a major life goal. It wasn’t buying a house, learning Greek or finishing my novel. No: I “completed” Seinfeld, having spent most of the summer watching every one of the sitcom’s 169 – or 180, depending on how you count it – episodes, from pilot to [...]

Hot on the heels of Cats’ digital dalliance with CGI nether regions comes another bum-related movie controversy: viewers have noticed some unsubtle changes to the mermaid romcom Splash as it appears on Disney+. There is a shot of Daryl Hannah diving into the sea, having just kissed a dumbstruck Tom Hanks. In the [...]

I’ve been thinking about memories, and about what on earth will remain from this time. On one level I feel a bit superstitious even entertaining the thought of after: it seems presumptuous. But when others talk about what might come next, it gives me a fillip of optimism, so I’ve decided to allow myself to [...]

The apocalypse needs to end. Anyone who writes about apocalypse today is bound to acknowledge that humans have worried and theorised about it for as long as they have worried and theorised about anything; at some point, the writer is guaranteed to employ the word “eschatological” as a nod to the fact that [...]

In 1983, Christine Harris and Robert Frati were both working for a technology company. “I was based in the UK and he was in France,” she explains. To prepare for a corporate takeover, they were put in the same classroom for a two-week training session. “I took an instant dislike to him,” says Christine. “He [...]

Scholarships have been threatened. LinkedIn and Facebook profiles have been removed. Death threats have been sent in their hundreds, if not thousands. And governments spurred into action. Since mid-March – when the government first recommended self-isolation measures as a way to tackle the spread of the [...]

Jenny Boyd has two words for anyone who ever fantasized about marrying a rich and famous rock star. “Watch out,” she said, with a laugh. “It’s not what you [...]

It was late September 1988: George Bush was up against Michael Dukakis in the first of their two TV debates. The presidential campaign was hotting up and Dukakis was faltering. I switched off the TV and headed for Bond Street off Broadway, New York City, where Malcolm McLaren was living with Lauren Hutton. We were off [...]