Monday
My children’s ability to surprise me shows no sign of letting up even now both are well into their 20s. Earlier this year, our daughter told us she would be getting married in the UK in October. About a fortnight ago we got a call to say there had been a change of plan. She and her partner, Robert, would now be getting married in Minnesota in 10 days’ time while they were visiting his parents. Cue mini-panic as my wife and I set about cancelling various previous arrangements and booked a weekend trip to Minneapolis. The ceremony itself took place in Robert’s parents’ kitchen and was conducted by his uncle, who had managed to get himself his own ministry the week before. It was somehow both something I had never imagined but also just perfect. Anna and Robert looked so happy together and my wife and I – along with our new in-laws – cried throughout. The whole thing was bittersweet. I am thrilled that Anna has grown up with the capacity to love and be loved and has met someone who so obviously loves her and with whom she wants to spend the rest of her life. In many ways, it feels as if my job as parent is almost complete but that comes with its own sense of loss. A reminder that I am now a more peripheral figure in her life. Nor am I quite sure where all the time has gone. It seems not so long ago that she was fighting for life in the paediatric intensive care unit moments after she was born.
Tuesday
In between his many media appearances as one of the country’s most influential political commentators, Iain Dale found time to establish Biteback Publishing in 2012. In the six years since, Biteback has grown to be one of the biggest and most successful publishers of political books. Any politician with a story to tell, who couldn’t command a six-figure advance from one of the larger publishing houses, could be guaranteed a home at Biteback. But now Dale has decided to take more of a back seat and the person he has chosen to front his company is Andy McNab, the former soldier who wrote Bravo Two Zero and has gone on to make a career as a thriller writer. Or rather the former soldier who got a ghost writer to help him out with Bravo Two Zero and his thrillers. Quite what McNab will bring to Biteback is anybody’s guess and it’s fair to say his appointment has left most people in Westminster scratching their heads. Maybe Dale knows something we don’t and Brexit is about to turn into an actual battlefield rather than just a political one. Still, my good friend John Sutherland is feeling quite secure: he has two books published by Biteback, both of which have the word “war” in the title.
Wednesday
The Hay festival is one of my annual highlights, and I’ve been lucky enough to be invited to speak every year for the last decade. This year I’ve been doing one event on the hopelessness of the Theresa May government with the brilliant and astonishingly well-connected Sunday Times political editor, Tim Shipman, and another on Frankenstein and Dracula with Sutherland, my long-time collaborator and quite the cleverest man I know. Both events drew great audiences and it’s always lovely to catch up with old friends around the festival, but one of the greatest pleasures is to be had in people watching. In particular the politicians. This year David Davis was to be found hanging around in the Green Room looking a bit lost and friendless. No one quite knew why the Brexit secretary was there as he wasn’t doing an event. Presumably because he has no more clue about how Brexit is going to pan out than the rest of us. On the plus side, what Davis does have going for him is that he isn’t Gavin Williamson. The out-of-his-depth defence secretary wasn’t just given the brush off by Richard Madeley on TV. The elephants also gave him the cold shoulder, terrified at the thought their safety was in Gavin’s hands.
Thursday
Some good news at last for the Brexiters. Their pleas for the Royal Mail to issue a set of stamps to commemorate one of the most divisive moments in the country’s history may have fallen on deaf ears, but the junior Treasury minister, Robert Jenrick, has apparently indicated he is open to the idea of minting some special Brexit coins. Quite what designs might feature on the new 50p coins is as yet unclear, though I am sure the Royal Mint is open to suggestions. The current frontrunners are the white cliffs of Dover with the words “go home” scrawled across them, fields full of rotting vegetables that no one in Britain can be bothered to pick because the pay is so bad, and foreign multinationals packing up to relocate abroad. But the designs are a minor consideration in the general scheme of things. What will make these 50p coins a real collector’s item is that they will only be worth 40p.
Friday
The only vaguely positive thing to come out of Roseanne Barr’s racist tweet about Valerie Jarrett, a former senior adviser to Barack Obama, is the revelation that some big pharmaceutical companies do have a sense of humour after all. All medicines are legally obliged to list their possible side-effects in their packaging: the ones I take on a daily basis come with warnings that include sleep problems, strange dreams, headache, dizziness, vision changes, tremors, anxiety, pain, weakness, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, sweating, hot flushes, changes in appetite, flu symptoms, suicidal thoughts, impotence, memory problems, back pain and numbness. I sometimes think it’s a wonder I can function at all, but Barr chose to blame her late night outburst on being under the influence of the sedative Ambien. By way of reply, Sanofi, its manufacturer, posted a tweet of its own: “People of all races, religions and nationalities work at Sanofi every day to improve the lives of people around the world. While all pharmaceutical treatments have side-effects, racism is not a known side-effect of any Sanofi medication.’ Respect.
Digested week, digested: This interview is terminated.