Richard D North.

The late Dominick Dunne, novelist and chronicler of celebrity trials, was by parts Taki, Jennifer's Diary, The Sunday Times Insight team, Edith Wharton, Thackeray, and J J Hunsecker (of The Sweet Smell of Success). Read more...

The less we regulate banks and financial firms, the safer we will be. Those of us that want safety, that is. (That would be me: I am morbidly timid.)  Here's 10 bullet points saying why. Read more...

The BBC won't survive the next five years without massive changes. It'll get (or keep) a lot less licence fee. It is much weaker than it ever has been. It is likely to be privatised. Read more...

Previously, I listed Karen Blixen's house outside Copenhagenand Kettle's Yard, Cambridge as my favourite interiors. Casting around for third, I wondered about including Charleston, the rustic Bloomsbury hangout. Now I have a better candidate: Matisse's chapel at Saint Paul de Vence. Read more...

The latest climate change row concerns a book by the "denier", Ian Plimer (an Australian geologist) and its most public critic, climate "alarmist", George Monbiot (of the Guardian). George seems to be winning hands-down at the moment. It happens that another Australian, Garth Paltridge, has also produced a climate change book, and it is sceptical rather than refusenik. I hope my review of the books, below, shows how they are both bad. Read more...

Sending Mr al-Megrahi home to Libya has produced one of the most interesting muddles and mysteries of our time. I don't think we can trust anyone in authority to tell us what they really think. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Read more...

I'm due on the BBC's The Big Questions show in the morning. One of the subjects is protest and in particular the Climate Camp. If you save the planet, can you break the law? Read more...

Betty Miller and Henry James both wrote beautifully about the merits of failure. Here are a couple of quotes from a mid-summer mini-orgy of reading. Read more...

Hot from ENRON, the dazzling show at Chichester Festival Theatre's Minerva Theatre, one realises that it was a romp with next to nothing useful to say. I imagine it will go down a storm when it transfers to the Royal Court. Read more...

The BBC's The Big Questions has asked me on to discuss consumerism. Presumably they want me to defend it and I'm pretty happy to do that. Of course, I intend to be a little mealy-mouthed. I am very happy to defend affluence and inequality. I think people do little harm and much good as consumers, but I suppose consumerism is one degree too materialist to be wholly satisfactory.  Read more...