Back to London at last. New York can equal it, but nothing beats it. Yet even as the city becomes sprucer the culture seems to be going the other way. Nothing exemplifies this better than the ever-descending grossness of the British press.How, for instance, to explain the lascivious coverage of the trials of Amanda Knox?

Until her recent successful appeal the young American was convicted of a particularly lurid and vicious murder. The Italian court system found her guilty, though now believes otherwise. But why did the press, including once-fine broadsheets, leer throughout? When did it become seemly to refer to somebody convicted of murder as "Foxy Knoxy"? I remember some years back seeing two teenage girls holding up a sign outside a court building saying a young male defendant was "fit". But they covered their faces as they did so, aware that it was embarrassing and probably shameful to lust after a person convicted of a serious crime. When it came to Knox the press responded with one big "Phwoar!"

* * *

I go to the opening of an exhibition of photographs by Bill Wyman. The landscapes are beautiful, but the pictures of his fellow Rolling Stones remind me how few of their songs I can name, let alone sing. I slip out  before dinner.

On the way home I stop at my local Indian to collect a takeaway. I'm waiting when one of those coincidences occurs that should worry a diarist lest he be disbelieved. In a quiet corner of the restaurant, with a couple of friends, is a recent X Factor winner. Our eyes meet and I look away quickly, feeling guilty for some reason. I realise I have already compared him with the host of the earlier part of my evening. The X Factor winner is maybe now just in his twenties. His whole life is before him, but the career he was thrown into — or at least its best part — is almost certainly behind him. When we are Bill Wyman's age will my generation look back at the phenomenon of reality television as a musical trend or just a cynical exercise in the inflating and dashing of young people's hopes?