‘My own red carpet days have long since mutated into brown lino nights, but looking back at the times I borrowed a designer frock for a nomination, I usually spent the evening feeling faintly immoral’

"Martin? Me again, I got cut off. No, still on the train. Just past Milton Keynes."

Cursed by a name

An eavesdropper reports from a Labour volunteers' briefing: avoid Jewish households—not that they matter

'I’ve decided against taking the Medea job. It was a really hard decision but in the end I felt the part should go to an actress— sorry an actor, of either sex obviously — who really had eaten her children'

‘It’s just with regard to, like, discussion about anti-Semitism . . . well, I just keep thinking one thing. Why is it always them?’

"If this man makes America great again, I will eat a sombrero"

"Putin revels in others’ weakness. A man with a facelift who poses bare-chested on horseback is not a well man"

"Must the garage have a Nespresso bar? Must the library and the swimming pool do shawarma and chips?"

"It’s my Labour Party, Mr Corbyn, and I’ll cry if I want to"