At 18 I had a waist you could put your arm round, just 26 inches. But in the mirror this morning I found myself looking at something the circumference of a bicycle wheel.

It's restaurants that did it. All my life I've been a restaurant freak; they're where I function...

I had a dream. President Obama wasn't really religious at all. It was just a front he put on for political purposes. His embrace of Christianity was just to get himself re-elected. Safely in the White House for a second term he dared to say what no President had ever...

Last week Sir Richard Branson and Alan McGee were amongst people who wrote pieces in favour of decriminalising illegal drugs. They both say they once used them but don't now. My position is different; I'm an addict. At least, I think I am, though not of anything illegal.

The American...

A lady came knocking on my door last week asking me sign my name to a petition about lowering carbon emissions. I really didn't want to.

The point is, I know there are too many planes flying to too many places, and too many cars, and too many exhaust pipes,...

Last week, the odious piety of Pope Benedict was again on display as he canted about the evils of homosexuality. While addressing the diplomatic corps at the Vatican, he said gay marriage could undermine "the future of humanity itself".

No mention of the world's one billion condom-less Catholic willies ejaculating...

Personality, that's the thing that always makes a hit
Your nationality or your rationality doesn't help or hinder you one bit

That was Eva Tanguay - America's first superstar. Her philosophy would one day be embraced by rock stars everywhere, "the singer not the song".

Tanguay was the biggest...

Ronaldo has some new boots. Have you seen them? They're cheat's boots.

The Real Madrid star has been working with Nike for the last year to develop a new pair of boots in orange and white and grey, covered in circles and parallel lines (and a few non-parallel ones too)....

"Have you ever been raped?"

I was eating lunch with a gaggle of friends last week when the discussion got round to Julian Assange and someone asked the question round the table. I said, perhaps I had. Or perhaps not, depending how you looked at it.

To my mind,...

This year in popular music wasn't too stunning.

Cee Lo's Forget You was fun, Born This Way was gaily re-assuring, Adele's continued success was a wonderful two-fingers up at the majors, and Bruno Mars reminded us that a boyish voice and a catchy song is still the mainstay of good...

Male mosquitos are as benign as butterflies. They have fleshy lips with hairy antenna and fly around gathering pollen. It's the females who are the horrors. Their lips are hypodermics, made for sucking blood and injecting itch-making saliva. As a result, when mosquitos fall in love they don't do a...

Last week at the Groucho club I bumped into Jeff Beck. I hadn't seen him for ages.

Of all the artists I ever managed, he's my favourite. And I've always considered him the best of Britain's blues guitarists, certainly the best of the three who came from the Yardbirds.

As...

Since James Murdoch's appearance before that parliamentary committee a couple of weeks ago, media coverage of him just hasn't stopped. Amongst all the talk about his evasive manner, his shortcomings as the head of a big corporation, and whether he might or might not have been telling the truth, there's...

Earlier this year, trawling round the net, I came across a new comic-book hero - Foreskin Man.

Styled after Superman, Foreskin Man is an all-American, all-flying, all-powerful, muscle-man in tights. Blonde, square-jawed, and fully-foreskinned, he flies round the world with his companion Vulva Girl, rescuing infants from circumcision. So...

Last week EMI Records was sold to Universal Music. Many nostalgic pieces appeared about "the last truly British record company". In fact, EMI owed its existence to four Americans.

In 1877, in his laboratory in New Jersey, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, which recorded on a cylinder. In 1887, Emile...

Insults? Perhaps the best in the last 10 years time came from Christopher Hitchens: "If they gave Jerry Falwell an enema he could be buried in a matchbox." And amongst the worst, this week, from the New Zealand caddie Steve Williams when he called Tiger Woods a "black arsehole".

The...

The first bit of this happened in the 60s when I managed the Yardbirds and lived in a posh flat behind Buckingham Palace. It started with a phone call.

"Is that Simon Napier-Bell, the rock manager?"

"That's me." It was 8.30 in the morning...

I've just made a big decision. I'm no longer an atheist. My stand against religion is simply not sustainable. It's defeated me.

It's just too absurd that a person should be defined by what he doesn't believe in, rather than what he does. Nonsensical, in fact. And since God...

Guy Hands is still hanging on. At least he thinks he is.

Two weeks ago he started an action against Citibank claiming they grabbed EMI from him wrongfully. Citibank have been trying to sell EMI for 4 billion dollars but the offers they've received so far have come in...

'Bugger me!'

I'd finished my weekly piece for the Huff, and sent it off. I'd had dinner, drunk a bottle of wine, was halfway through a brandy, and I got an email from my editor.

'Apologies for short notice. We've noticed it's Coming Out Day tomorrow. Wondering...

Dr Conrad Murray's having a bad time. Outside the courtroom where he's being tried for manslaughter, people are holding up signs saying, 'Who really killed Michael Jackson?' But it's a question we already know the answer to. Dr Murray's just the fall guy...

Michael Jackson killed Michael Jackson.

If ever...