The Lost Diaries. Craig Brown

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!

      Freud: not a name you hear very often.

      

       HM QUEEN ELIZABETH II

      Let’s face it – we are at a watershed in world history. And like all watersheds, it’s full not only of sheds, but of water too. Yup, this shed is full of water – and we’ve got to do something. So let’s be brutally honest. You can’t store all that water in a shed without something dreadful happening. First of all, the water could spill out through the gaps in the walls. Look, I don’t pretend to be an expert in watersheds, or how they’re constructed. I’m an artist. But what I do know is this. If there’s too much water in the shed, then it doesn’t matter how many people you’ve got guarding it, or trying to plug the holes. That shed is going to burst.

      And then we’ll all get soaking wet.

      Our clothes will be ruined. Our hair will go all flat. And there’s no point even talking about highlights in a situation like that. It’ll all be totally unmanageable.

      And that scares the shit out of me.

      

       GEORGE MICHAEL

       March 8th

      8 March 1960: Happy Birthday Dear Me! Twelve today! The Headmaster approaches me personally and wishes me Many Happy Returns of The Day!! I tell him how simply WONDERFUL he’s looking, and insist (‘There’s nothing in the world I’d like more, Headmaster!’) on walking with him. He is understandably overjoyed, but says he’d rather walk alone. Poor old fellow – no one likes to be outshone!! Onwards and upwards!

      

       GYLES BRANDRETH

      8 March 1970: Happy Birthday Dear Me! Twenty-two today!! That’s twenty-two years of fun and laughter and all-round entertainment for all my family and friends! I’ve had the most MARVELLOUS year with literally billions of achievements to my name! I’ve built a full-size traction engine (The Gyles Brandreth) out of 5,734,297 matches, I’ve written, directed and starred in my own musical (Gyles: The Musical), I’ve published The Gyles Brandreth Book of Irish Knock-Knock Jokes, I’ve become the first ever person to sing ‘Yes We Have No Bananas’ backwards on Radio Luxembourg, I’ve made best friends with Fanny Cradock, Gilbert Harding and Mr Pastry, I’ve climbed the world’s smallest hill, and I haven’t even mentioned my exciting new range of brightly-coloured pom-poms to brighten up your dowdy old oven gloves! Next stop: I plan to ascend Mount Everest!

       GYLES BRANDRETH

      8 March 1980: Happy Birthday Dear Me! Thirty-two today!!! I may not yet have quite managed to climb Mount Everest – the offer from the gentlemen’s mountainwear sponsors simply wasn’t jolly enough, financially! – but I did manage to break the world record for playing twenty-four different songs on the spoons in under two minutes while standing on one foot on a lilo dressed as a nun!

      Yesterday, I attended a formal dinner for all us former Presidents of the Oxford Union. Frankly, I stood out from the others. I was the only one who came as Little Bo Peep.

      This year I wrote thirty-two books, including the bestselling 501 Uses