As Lord Archer of Belmarsh adjusts to life inside, those who came across him in happier times have their memories of his extraordinary behaviour to amuse and console them. My own favourite concerns the famous penthouse, where, I am reliably informed (I've never been there myself, you understand), guests would arrive to find his Lordship fiddling with a seriously sod-off painting on the wall. "Ah!" he would cry, as if surprised. "Sorry - just adjusting the Canaletto." The route to the loo apparently also involved a tour of the Old Masters. "Turn left at the Picasso, carry on past the Matisse, and it's just before you get to the Manet." I once related this story to an American friend who was on his way to drinks with Archer. Later that same evening, I was doing an after-dinner stint at a charity dinner. Archer was doing the auction. As usual, he gathered round the organisers and helpers, including me, while he barked out his instructions to each in turn. "You - I want that table number facing me . . . no, facing me, do you hear? And that one . . . and over there . . . and I want the lights up, do you understand? And by the way, it's not a Matisse, it's a Leger . . . and who's doing that table there?" My blood ran cold, my card comprehensively marked. Certainly, I might have got the exact paintings muddled up in the telling - but then, with Jeffrey, you'd never know, would you?
Great news for the Chancellor and Mrs Brown that they've reached the convergence criteria for parenthood and are now enjoying what Tony Blair might describe as the "post-euphoria, pre-delivery phase". From recent experience (Ava, born eight weeks ago), I can only marvel at the unbelievable resilience of all mothers as they go through pregnancy, with all its afflictions. From nausea to sciatic pain, it seems little can be done to ease the discomfort. If pregnancy were a public service (which it is), the government would have to do what it always does when the problems are intractable, and rename it in the hope of improving its image. How about "New Labour"?
Blair continues to exasperate and disappoint in equal measure. Like the whole Labour government, he ended the parliamentary session exhausted from the sheer effort, not so much of running the country as of getting re-elected, a project that dominated Labour thinking for at least 18 months. The irony is that, in possession of a huge majority, Blair still seems so tense and petulant, seeking confrontation and posturing aggressively. "Watch out!" he warns the unions, "I'm not going to accept any opposition to my plans." What plans? We don't even know what they are yet. I'm not sure he knows what they are. But he does know that, whatever they are, they're right, because they're his plans, OK?
The PM might reflect on how his growing distaste for opposition led him instinctively to support the police in Genoa before details emerged of their own violent role in the proceedings. While continuing his lip service to democracy, Blair is increasingly frustrated by it. The irony is that while he was pronouncing on the rights and wrongs of the Oslo protesters in the name of democracy, the summit leaders there were telling the Irish government that itspeople had got it wrong by voting against tax harmonisation, and that the Irish government should damn well go back and get the people to vote the right way. By telling governments that if they don't like the result of democratic votes, they should take them back and change them, the new world leaders are adopting the Marks & Spencer model of politics, with as much credibility as those running the store.
While Blair was entertaining George Bush, and the gap between the two was continuing to close, the American prison service was entertaining a friend of mine. Steve Morgan, a highly experienced freelance photographer, was covering the Greenpeace protest against last month's Star Wars launch when he was arrested. Placed in a cell with 30 people and denied a change of clothes, his spectacles and his asthma treatment, he was shackled for his court appearance and found it surprisingly hard to get to see a British consular official while Dubbya was in Britain. So, as the leaders enjoy their holiday, a British press photographer waits in jail, facing a charge of conspiracy that carries a ten-year sentence. Is this the new special relationship?
A recent radio programme invited suggestions for how Ken Clarke and Iain Duncan Smith should spend the summer. My own suggestion is that they should each join the party that reflects their views: Ken Clarke should join the Labour Party - although, as Peter Hitchens pointed out, it might be too right-wing for him. IDS, meanwhile, should join the UK Independence Party. What seems clear is that neither should set much store by the Conservative Party, which is now as doomed as the Titanic. All that remains is for Tony Blair and George Bush to announce that they intend to get married on the deck.
The late Larry Adler was the butt of several terrific anecdotes and practical jokes. John Fortune once told me of a disgruntled friend who invited Adler for supper. The menu - corn on the cob, spare ribs, melon - was carefully plotted for the sole purpose of watching Adler spend the entire meal holding harmonica-shaped objects to his lips, and wondering when he would notice.
