Forget the Sword of Truth, Wield Your Pen ; the Diary Has Become a Best-Selling Literary Form. the Reason? They Are as Addictive to Read as They Are to Write

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If you've been stranded by the winter weather or the (in)activity of Railtrack in the past week, how those dull hours could have been changed by the company of people like Andy Warhol, Chips Channon, Alan Bennett, Evelyn Waugh and Virginia Woolf. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, there is nothing like a diary if you want something sensational to read in the train.

But what about writing one? For most of us, it begins with a New Year's resolution - "must start a diary" - but by the first Sunday of 2001 how many will still be at it? There will be no shortage of excuses. I know, I have used them all myself. The trouble is, as Gyles Brandreth - like Tony Benn, a serious diarist …