The Diary Review

‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law [. . .] I am aflame with the brandy of the thought that I am the sublimest Mystic in all hi...

‘I am startled to find that on the last page of my diary for 1980 I myself wrote: “There will be a nuclear war in the next decade.” And then...

Half a century ago today, Cyclone Tracy devastated the Australian town of Darwin, destroying 80% of houses, making 41,000 out of the 47,000...

Dannie Abse, the Welsh doctor, poet and occasional diarist, died ten years ago today, just two days before I got married (though I’d known m...

‘I decided that the Brussels years were likely to be a sharply isolated segment of my life, and that I might mark them by attempting this ne...

I have never had a very close relationship with the Queen, who died yesterday, so no mourning for me. But I’m not a republican. I feel I’ve ...

Four decades ago I took part in a Brighton festival workshop on the famous novel  Brighton Rock . It was an interesting experience, if a lit...