Diary

You may think that, but . . .

AT A convivial lunch in London yesterday, the former Tory chief of staff Michael Dobbs preferred not to answer some gentle questioning about the identity of the best-selling author who inspired him to write The House of Cards. There is some interest in this author, because Dobbs says he didn't much take to the book that he and his wife, Amanda, bought at an airport en route for the island of Gozo after the 1987 election. Both had argued over who was going to read it first, but it didn't matter in the end because his wife gave up after 10 pages, leaving him free to read to his heart's content.

Ten pages into the book, his considered verdict was: 'the author is having trouble getting into this'. Many pages later he was still unimpressed, as he continued to tell his wife - who tired of his carping, and challenged him to have a go himself. The result - he sketched out the plot in 24 hours - was Francis Urquhart.

So who was the author? Is it his former colleague, Lord Archer, deputy chairman of the Conservative Party in Dobbs's time?

The Urquhartism 'you may think that, but I couldn't possibly comment' did not (thankfully) cross his lips, although he appeared anxious not to tell what he had earlier described (in a reference to William Waldegrave) as a 'constitutional fiction'. A denial (twice pressed) was not exactly tripping off his tongue.

THE LATEST set of Boris Yeltsin's memoirs have finally arrived in Britain, not in the diplomatic bag, but in a cardboard box carried by one of the new breed of Russian 'biznizmen' now commuting regularly between Moscow and London. The memoirs are now in the hands of HarperCollins, which also published Mikhail Gorbachev's account of the 1991 coup. The new book, I'm told, explains Yeltsin's recent, much-publicised unavailability to take a telephone call from President Clinton on the Bosnia crisis. He was, Muscovites tell me, incommunicado at his own insistence while final adjustments were made to the text.

Sprung to the pub THE MOUSETRAP runs on and on, but it nearly didn't on Wednesday night. As the cast prepared for the 17,148th production, St Martin's theatre was evacuated because of a bomb threat, and the 'curtain-up' was delayed for the first time in 42 years. A call received at 7.20pm warned of a device in the dressing rooms, and the whodunit was delayed by half an hour. The cast put the time to good use, however - while ticket- holders waited anxiously outside for the all-clear, they adjourned to the Two Brewers 'to keep warm'.

'SAY THE French naval motto aloud and think in English: 'A l'eau; c'est l'heure',' a tipster suggested yesterday. I did, and laughed, but not as loudly as the French Embassy staff (who, for the record, said French sailors don't have a motto).

Livingstone's guide RESCUED from obscurity, the sextant that helped Dr David Livingstone across Africa. It was unearthed the other day by the latter- day explorer Richard Snailham as he was searching for exhibits for the new Explorers' Room at the Sheraton Park Hotel, London. Hoping for a souvenir of Africa from Stanley's collection, he called on Jane Stanley, widow of the explorer's grandson, and was directed to a newspaper-wrapped bundle from the cupboard under the stairs. Inside was a box carrying the sextant, together with a note from Livingstone thanking Stanley for coming to his aid.

ON DISPLAY at Dillons, Manchester, a book by the former Energy Secretary Peter Walker, now Lord Walker of Worcester, which was first priced at pounds 16.99, dropped to pounds 11.38, then pounds 5.75, then pounds 3. The book's title? Staying Power.

A DAY LIKE THIS

11 March 1938 Andre Gide writes in his diary: 'I went to the Jardin des Plantes, where I wanted to see my chameleon again. Not managing to feed him, I had turned him over to the Vivarium, where he is stuffed with cockroaches for lack of flies, rather rare in this season. 'Timothy', the only one of (this) species, cuts a very elegant figure beside two enormous chameleons from Madagascar; the colour of cinders. He immediately decked himself in grass- green, spotted with black; this is his dress costume. I feel again that extraordinary serenity which Butler said he experienced in the contemplation of big pachyderms; which I enjoy indistinctly in this place where all human activity is devoted to the study of animals and plants. Probably the way of communing with God that most satisfies me is that of naturalists. It seems to me that the divinity they approach is the least subject to caution.'