DIARY
PETER PRESTON Why, even in the familiar midsummer depths of vituperation, does one still feel a residual sympathy for John Major? He doesn't seem to have any friends: which is one reason for liking him. Of course, there are all the usual 'loyalists' who can be relied on, usually off the record, to say that any alternative prime minister would be much worse. But there is no salon of intel- lectual chums to rally to him as (when dinosaurs roamed the earth) Kenneth Baker did to Edward Heath. All the big names who want headlines and a due quo- tient of supportive articles have to run salons these days, as though the Conserva- tive Party was a leaking cruise liner. Cock- tails in the Heseltine suite; canapes with Portillo; even — ultimate amazement port and brandy with Michael Howard. Meanwhile, on the smouldering deck, Tony Blair's chaps are beginning to organise a tea dance for guests like David English and Paul Johnson. I don't like such salons. They are closed circles which (when journalists are involved) tend to leave the reader out. Once in Downing Street I remember hear- ing Mrs Thatcher, the salon queen, thank a retiring editor for writing a speech she'd delivered to great applause from his own paper, amongst others. Perhaps The Specta- tor might perform a public service by pub- lishing a full guide to current salons. Putting the canapes down first, of course.
Pedro Ramirez is the most remarkable editor of his (fortyish) generation. If his name were Bradlee or Evans, journalists would hail him with the special reverence they reserve for super-troublemakers; but Pedro is stowed away in the sheltered world of Madrid and — in our Europhobia or Anglo-introversion — we tend not to notice the waves he keeps making. I notice (the declaration of interest bit) because Um a friend and, since the week before last, a director of his paper, El Mundo. You don't need to be a friend, however, to see some- thing special here. El Mundo is by any mea- sure the most successful new newspaper in Europe. That has happened the old-fash- ioned way: scoop after scoop, revelation after revelation. They have laid bare the secret corruptions of the Spanish Socialist government — the cash, the fixers, the dodgy bankers, the anti-terrorist hit squads and, last week, systematic police telephone- tapping of everyone who matters from King Juan Carlos down. Most of the time, when these exploits get mentioned abroad, com- mentators talk about 'the right-wing daily, El Mundo', because it's the Gonzalez Socialists who are getting it in the neck and because Pedro Ramirez can seem just as much a leader of the Opposition as his occasional tennis partner, Aznar. Profound misunderstanding. It is news which drives this engine. A year into the first PP govern- ment, I bet, Pedro will be making Aznar's moustache twitch in alarm I'm camping for the moment in an office surrounded by bubbling young advertising people. The debates are different here refreshingly so. Two floors down, in editori- al, they're discussing Bosnia again: up here — shrewdly prompted by the Daily Mail the big question is whether Dr Carter or Dr Ross (the goggling intern or the hollow- eyed sex athlete) is the sexiest hunk in ER. I provoke decisive giggles by saying, neither of the above. Anthony Edwards — who plays Dr Green — may be squattish and balding and astigmatic, nervous frenzy in pebble glasses, but he's the most inspiring sight on television this season. Edwards can move from compulsive action to still, silent grief in a trice, and the eyes always follow him. Is he (a secondary debate) a prospec- tive Hollywood presence as opposed to a mere television star? There is a difference. David Caruso from NYPD looks curiously shrunken in Kiss of Death. Jimmy Smits, his Bochco successor, went into films and then came out of them *in. But questions like this are only relevant if you think movie acting exists on a higher plain, and some- how I increasingly don't. The telly Super- man is wittier, more stylish and more engaging than any of the Christopher Reeve epics, and Teri Hatcher is a Lois `We're thinking of making it an annual event' Lane to leave Margot Kidder for dead. But that is another debate — whilst the Bosni- an one prattles on.
Jonah Lomu may, as Will Carling claims, be a freak; but he is a magnificent freak. He doesn't merely turn defences to straw, scything forward. I thought he was even more miraculous — a stone heavier than Frank Bruno, remember — when turning himself, catching Tony Underwood by the shirt and hurling him into touch like a sheet of discarded wrapping-paper. Has there ever been a winger to touch him? Only, for sheer wonder in the memory, the young Tony O'Reilly (now, by irony, making Underwoods of the South African editors he controls). I remember once seeing O'Reilly play for the Barbarians against Leicester Tigers, just before Charlton Hes- ton beat him for Ben Hur. That would have been sensible casting, because in red- haired, bounding youth he seemed exactly like a Roman god. If it were all happening today, I suppose Rupert Murdoch would now be signing up Tony (like Jonah) for the Sky Super League; and there would be no thought in the world of his going into canned soup — or newspapers.
Iwish I was a woman. Well, a woman diarist at least. It is so much easier. You do not (on current newspaper form) have to go anywhere or do anything much. You can just rabbit away — school of Zoe Heller as the cheques come in. 'I am thirty-five, lying in a stripy hammock with Las Vegas Red toenails and I feel like a bimbo,' wrote — large type — Julie Myerson in the Inde- pendent last week. Or (same size type, this week), 'How can I tell my kids that Granny's putting out for some adulterous toy-boy sugar daddy?' On Wednesday, Bridget Jones begins, 'I think I am preg- nant. How could I have been so stupid?' Thus is the small change of feminine exis- tence recycled to catch other women and men dipping in. You do not, it appears, have actually to do anything very pulsating. Julie is only thinking what it would be like if she were a bikini bimbo lying in that hammock rather than collecting the kids from school. But no event is too mundane or trivial' to fail to stretch to 800 words. Mere male hearts may bleed for the predicament of Alexei Sayle, columnar companion of Julie and Bridget. 'How do you start your first column? What should it be about? That's the first question.' And the second, and the third. As Alistair Cooke might say: 'Goodnight.'
Peter Preston is editor in chief of the Guardian and the Observer.
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