Londoner's Diary: At least the FT can now say it reeled in Jeremy Paxman

 
Not taking the bait: Jeremy Paxman turned down several high-profile posts
24 December 2014

First the beard went. Then Jeremy went himself. Paxman announced in April that he was quitting as the grand inquisitor of Newsnight — now “run by 13-year-olds” — apparently to spend more time with his fishing rod.

Indeed, Paxo must have been out on the riverbank when The Londoner emailed him a week later to ask whether he was interested in the first in a long line of possible new positions. Was he keen on taking over from Lord Patten as chairman of the BBC Trust? He never got back to us — the post later went to Rona Fairhead.

Next we agonised over whether — in keeping with the great tradition of BBC bigwigs being put out to pasture at Oxbridge colleges — he fancied taking up Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford on its offer to become principal. Again he declined. Then the Conservative Party offered to make him its candidate for Mayor of London. Sadly for the Tories, he declared it was a job he wouldn’t do “for all the eclairs in Paris.”

So what was he going to do? Surely not just fish? The Londoner had to wait until October until Paxo actually said yes to something: he would cover the 2015 election for Channel 4. It would be on one condition — that his old pal George Entwistle, the Beeb’s short-lived director-general, be hired too as the programme’s editor.

Then, last month, Paxman decided to announce some more robust future plans: he was becoming a contributing editor to FT Weekend. Phew. After a year tossing one way and then the other, he finally seems to have sailed into the pink.

Ed Balls never helps with the school run

At the beginning of the year, Yvette Cooper complained that her husband Ed Balls, the shadow Chancellor, never helped with the school run as he has “taken to piano practising during that period.” Unfortunately for her, we guess things haven’t improved: Balls passed his grade four piano exam last week and wants to reach grade eight in three years. His counterpart George Osborne’s ambition for the same time frame is to clear the deficit.

Time to turn the page, Mr Miliband

The most hotly tipped must-read of the year, Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st-Century, has defeated many of the nation’s most enthusiastic armchair economists. Boris couldn’t stomach it, and even George Osborne and Ed Balls refused to give a firm “yes” when The Londoner asked if they’d read it all the way through.

Perhaps it’s Labour leader Ed Miliband who struggled the most, however. In April, we noticed that he had told an interviewer he’d only started the book but by June he was still saying he was on the first few pages. So has he finished it yet? The Londoner called up his office to find out. “I don’t know and I’m not asking him,” said Ed’s spokesperson. Surely The Londoner didn’t hit a nerve?

Carry on Cara in 2015, we say

A frequent reader comment this year has been “why so much Cara Delevingne?” The model has graced our pages so often that those eyebrows have become something of a talisman. She’s paraded down the streets in a pepperoni onesie, fallen over at the GQ Man of the Year Awards and driven her own Cara-van at a Mulberry picnic. She even sparked a fashion war: after American Vogue claimed she fell asleep in an interview, its UK counterpart and other Condé Nast titles remarked how awake she looked. Get some rest, Cara: 2015 is likely to be just as exhausting.

A very special relationship indeed

It’s been a full 2014 for the US Ambassador to London, Matthew Barzun. The “pretty jazzy” Happy Socks he was wearing in January gave a clue of the year to come. In March, The Londoner received an invitation to a party at his Regent’s Park residence which said jeans were welcome, thereby introducing the fashion-resistant trend “normcore” to London’s elite.

Anna Wintour had once been tipped for the ambassador’s position but even she would not have brought in the famous faces like Barzun did. His at-home bashes proved some of the most sought-after invitations of this year, with the arrival of the Winfield House sessions leading to impromptu performances from Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran, with drop-ins from designer Tom Ford and director Wes Anderson. Even David Cameron popped in to enjoy a set from his favourite new band, London Grammar. Their sales, somehow, did not suffer.

There was a rare blip in the summer when Barzun complained that he was sick of British cuisine after being served lamb and potatoes “180 times”. But he also showed grace when, during the World Cup, he made a wager with Belgian ambassador Guy Trouveroy that the Yanks would win when the countries met in the last 16. Barzun lost the bet yet still showed up promptly at Trouveroy’s gaff to make him a breakfast of American pancakes. Ambassador, thanks for spoiling us.

BoJo's pirouettes of the year

Boris’s linguistic pirouettes this year included the “polymammous udder” of the state and “osmotic infiltrating” of Ed Miliband. And The Londoner’s favourite? When Boris called Ukip a “doppelgänger” of the Tories. In German tradition, it means a double of yourself that appears as an omen of your own death. Boris is not a Teutonic expert: he is more au fait with Romance languages.

All a-chatter on the 16.15

Back in July, I reported how commuter Sarah Quinney happened to sit near a well-spoken brunette speaking on her phone on the 16.15 from Portsmouth. The topic of conversation was the supposed secrets of the upcoming Cabinet reshuffle. “Someone called Ian is leaving the DWP (apparently he wants to go and has agreed to go),” Quinney wrote on her Facebook page. “Someone called Esther apparently wants to take over the role but is worried that she’s been too much of a bitch.”

In the end Iain Duncan Smith stayed put (a bruised ego, we hear) but Esther McVey, the MP for Wirral West, did indeed become Minister of State for Employment.

IDS’s special adviser Romilly Dennys denied it was her on the train and in any case called the incident a “storm in a teacup”. Whoever it was might want to stick to the quiet carriage.

Amal-apropism of the year from George Clooney, who said we should return the Elgin Marbles to the Pantheon, in Rome, not the Parthenon in Athens. We hope his new missus set him straight.

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