Celia Walden



Profile:
Full name: Celia Walden

Area of interest: Modern life, lifestyle, celebrity, politics, media

Journals/Organisation: The Daily Telegraph

Email: [mailto:celia.walden@telegraph.co.uk celia.walden@telegraph.co.uk]

Personal website:

Website: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/celia-walden

Blog: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/author/celiawalden

Representation: http://bloomsbury.com/Celia-Walden/authors/8442

Networks:



Biography:
About:

Education: Westminster School; Cambridge University

Career: Trained on the London Evening Standard; Mail on Sunday: features writer and celebrity interviewer on the 'Night and Day' Magazine; The Daily Telegraph: wrote the 'PartyBlog', July 2006/June 2007, was the last person to edit the 'Spy' diary column (which itself replaced the longstanding 'Peterborough' diary column (see Telegraph takes Peterborough off the map) before it was replace by the Mandrake column. Became senior features writer and columnist.

Current position/role: Columnist


 * also writes/written for:

Other roles/Main role:

Other activities:

Disclosures:

Viewpoints/Insight:
 * Polly Vernon: Life as a gossip girl, The Observer 2006
 * My Mentor: Celia Walden on George Walden 'My father was adamant that certain kinds of words should never be written', The Independent, Monday 4th August 2008
 * Stylist.co.uk: Interview: Celia Walden

Broadcast media: Appearances on TV programmes ranging from More 4's The Last Word to reviewing the newspapers for Sky News; see IMDb

Video: Celia Walden Showreel YouTube
 * IMDb

Controversy/Criticism:

Awards/Honours:

Scoops:

Other: Daughter of Conservative politician George Walden; married to Piers Morgan



Books & Debate:


Latest work: Harm's way, 2008 OCLC 227276080

Speaking/Appearances:

Debate: 

The Daily Telegraph:
Column name:

Remit/Info: Modern life and its problems

Section:

Role: Columnist

Pen-name:

Email: [mailto:celia.walden@telegraph.co.uk celia.walden@telegraph.co.uk]

Personal website:

Website:

Commissioning editor:

Day published:

Regularity:

Column format:

Average length:



Articles: 2012
Selected articles
 * The cussing cousins leave Americans lost for words - Now that I'm a mother and living in LA, I can't stand cursing and swearing - 18th December
 * After Superstorm Sandy: Uptown guilt and Downtown rage as the waters recede - Superstorm Sandy has divided Manhattan between the relatively unscathed and those severely inconvenienced - 6th November
 * After Brad Pitt’s Chanel advert, there’s no way back to cool - Real men don’t wear perfumes, Brad - and they certainly don’t endorse them - 22nd October
 * Why Woody's worth the wait - Celia Walden joined the Russian minigarchs in a supper club to watch a dishevelled figure with a dripping nose play jazz - 9th October
 * With this wonder drug, you just pop till you drop - In America, everyone seems to be taking the wonder-drug Adderall - but what about all those worrying side-effects? - 25th September
 * The cocktail goes in – and the trousers come down - In Britain, posh boys think it’s funny to take their clothes off. Try explaining that to a foreigner - 27th August
 * Trips to the dentist can really take it out of you - When your dentist asks if you want to book in for a clean, remember that one thing leads to another - 14th August
 * Fair-weather Olympians are on a fast track to chubbiness - A new breed of fair-weather sportsmen have decided – for three weeks only – to live like Olympians - 31st July
 * A passion for Barbie that will cost you an arm and a leg - California is at its most eccentric at a convention for Barbie doll enthusiasts - 17th July
 * Save me from the Model Wives with tomatoes for brains - These Hollywood women think a Syrian intervention is a new cosmetic procedure - 3rd July
 * Erotic fiction needs a touch of wordplay - There's a fundamental problem with E L James’s Fifty Shades of Grey – the quality of the writing - 19th June
 * You won’t lose face if your dinner table chat’s cosmetic - The ladies who lunch in LA are not shy about having work done - but there are some lines you cannot cross - 22nd May
 * I’d like dinner without the sprinkle of stardust - Roast monkfish with cannabis purée? No thanks - 8th May
 * A testing time for hubbies who play away - A polygraph forensics company specialising in marital infidelity does great business in Beverly Hills - 24th April
 * A 'facial for the soul’ leaves me unenlightened - Celia Walden attends a 'Shrinking Mom Party' in Los Angeles - 9th April



Articles: 2011
Selected articles:
 * When the earth moves, just lie there and shake - The Great California ShakeOut, 'the world’s largest earthquake drill', was supposed to be no laughing matter - 28th October
 * Only Barack Obama would bring a SWAT team with him to the gym - No one is allowed near US President Barack Obama when he visits a downtown Los Angeles gym for a workout - 30th September
 * and TV awards: it’s not the winning that counts but which fashion designer you’re wearing'' - Who cares about the nominations? Just show us the dress - 22nd September
 * mistake, this woman was flirting with me'' - 'Friending' in Los Angeles can be every bit as gruelling and inorganic as dating - 16th September
 * Californian courtesies make for a nicer day - British visitors to the West Coast of America struggle to deal with the excessively well-mannered people of California - 9th September
 * super rich holiday merry-go-round'' - Owning a beachside mansion, mega-yacht or private island isn’t enough – it’s which celebrity you rent it to in the summer that counts in Hollywood - 27th July
 * collection of eggs in one basket. We get the picture...'' - Why is it that we are constantly bombarded with visual images of the blindingly obvious - 15th July
 * burly builder with fake nails - can I really be in Britain?'' - Returning to Britain from LA, I encountered a 6ft 2in construction worker at the manicurist - 8th July
 * business lunch? I really must have a little whine'' - The demise of the business lunch was one of the only good things about the recession - 1st July
 * have perfected the not so noble art of cynicism'' - I relish generalisations, being prone to the occasional arbitrary judgment myself - 24th June
 * even our shirts are being made to multi-task'' - These days, even a self-respecting loaf of bread must do more than taste good - 17th June
 * have lost their monopoly on disgusting behaviour'' - British ladettes will lap up Bridesmaids when it arrives in 10 days’ time - 10th June
 * fizzy water, madam? That’ll be 30 dollars a pop'' - In LA, the water menu is more eagerly awaited than the wine menu - 3rd June
 * no sin worse than publicly doing one’s make-up'' - Why bother with the whole charade if you’re going to let the outside world into every step of the process - 27th May
 * a national disgrace – but what nation would that be?'' - As national individuality wanes France and Italy will soon be flattened into Anglo-Saxon conformity - 20th May
 * some job you've got there, Pippa Middleton. Whatever is it?'' - There's nothing wrong with hobby-jobs, but they do attract the pathologically work-shy - 13th May
 * pregnant pause to see if Saint Nicolas’s halo will slip'' - Of course, it would be cynical to suggest that Carla Bruni’s alleged pregnancy is anything but a happy accident - 29th April
 * to Sam: does this suit make me look too posh?'' - I feel exhausted just thinking about what our Prime Minister has to go through every time he opens his wardrobe - 22nd April
 * me stuff, by all means, but don't try to analyse me'' - I was struck by the wisdom of this youthful soothsayer in her pink button-down overall – before remembering that it was all bilge of the highest order - 15th April
 * path to true love that begins with active disdain'' -Some of the university friends I believed would stay together for ever are showing signs of strain - 1st April
 * crazy by a fluttering Fair Weather Cyclist'' - London's cyclists are a preening, upper-middle class bunch who inhabit a fantasy world - 25th March
 * working too hard make you cheat on your wife?'' - Newt Gingrich has made amusing excuses for his misbehaviour - 18th March
 * such thing as a stranger in the land of the plain weird'' - The natural self-assurance of Californians is infectious - 11th March
 * signs will eventually turn us into a nation of idiots'' - Bit by bit, the country is being moron-proofed - 18th February
 * downturn must be bad - Parisians have turned polite'' - Contempt for your clientele is as implicit in French culture as needless apologising is to Brits - 4th February
 * the sink dirty and you'll never see your children again'' - If you're a fan of all things inappropriate, your era is coming to an end - 28th January
 * need of a shrink? Call your personal trainer'' - Personal trainers are so popular in New York that people are starting to be 'tele-trained' - 20th January
 * do we imagine that candles are heaven scent?'' - Scented candles are a completely unnecessary, synthetic addition to modern life - 7th January
 * men on TV ready for their close-up?'' - As Gordon Ramsay and Adrian Chiles fret about their on-air looks, Celia Walden discovers a desperate vanity among male presenters on TV - 5th January



Articles: 2010

 * many, it'll be a very unhappy new year'' - It will only need a small nudge to tip some households into destitution - 31st December
 * do these men with triple-barrelled jobs actually do?'' - Perhaps my New Year's resolution should be to open my mind to find out what the People With Incomprehensible Jobs actually do - 30th December
 * jelly beans really make you thin?'' - Forget the New Year detox. The latest diet fad embraced by Cheryl Cole et al involves eating nothing but sweets - 28th December
 * 'watch and control' is grounds for divorce'' - Even from 2,983 miles away, men will insist on changing the channel - 24th December
 * looks like Liz Hurley's having a caveman moment with Shane Warne'' - Most women have fallen prey to Caveman Syndrome at some point, but it's generally advisable to get it out of the way early on - 16th December
 * the web, the best gossip always comes by word of mouth'' - There's nothing like a meaty piece of gossip to get you in the mood for Christmas - 10th December
 * parties are a lottery'' - A dinner party takes up four hours of your life that you might never get back - 4th December
 * are ridiculous, but why do they seem to work?'' - it’s hard to deny that a simple pattern of words can have a massive emotional impact - 26th November
 * we’re in such a hurry, why do we waste time watching TV?'' - Do young people really not have a minute to spare - 19th November
 * was dining in the dark and paying through the nose for it'' - It had never occurred to me that there is a direct correlation between the lighting in restaurants and their prices - 12th November
 * woman needs a man or two to make her feel like a star'' - A good walker, you see, makes you feel like a Hollywood starlet - 5th November
 * names easily? Here's what not to do'' - How can you avoid awkwardness when you've forgotten a relative's name - 29th October
 * for clothes? With a man? I'm just not buying it'' - There is little women find less attractive than a heterosexual man who knows about clothes - 15th October
 * time to bin the Twitter twits and defriend the social climbers'' - Defriending is a splendid word – and possibly the only good thing to come out of social networking - 7th October
 * have big dreams about smaller dress sizes'' - In matters of size, we are too quick to point the finger at fashion editors, skinny models and gay designers, when we're partly to blame ourselves - 1st October
 * Fashion Week: Make my day – try on that crop top with the manskirt'' - Very quickly, the absurdities of modern male fashion at London Fashion Week had taken their toll - 24th September
 * lost property office that finds lost items? Only in Switzerland'' - I left Switzerland yearning for a little British inefficiency. But not for long - 17th September
 * meeting Jon Hamm, I actually heard myself purr'' - At GQ Men of the Year awards, the Mad Men star didn't quite live up to expectations - 10th September
 * is it so devilishly hard to get out of small-talk hell?'' - Women, natural witterers that we are, tend to be the worst culprits - 20th August
 * knock whingeing – it just takes practice'' - The British stiff upper lip gets us nowhere. We must learn to complain properly - 13th August
 * humiliation in the LA slimming clinic'' - The Beverly Hills sisterhood has a Brit-fixing mania - 6th August
 * not a whole lot of hand-shaking going on in Hollywood'' - Fist bumps, air-hugs and partial high-fives are all common currency in Los Angeles now - 22nd July
 * has now gone way beyond gazing into the mirror'' - After a decade of self-love Cristiano Ronaldo has comissioned a mini-me - 9th July
 * men just don't know how to talk to women'' - When Usher began to describe his voracious appetite (and I don't mean for lunch) in considerable detail, I was reduced to staring mutely down at my red-mullet salad - 11th June
 * me! I'm suffering from exclamation mark phobia!'' - Flyers and advertisements are scored with exclamation marks, while TV presenters, shop assistants and Starbucks baristas talk in them - 4th June
 * worry about Cheryl Cole's divorce?'' - People will tell you that this false intimacy with celebrities is about escapism, but the truth is more depressing - 27th May
 * smoke and mirrors for the brittle beauties'' - The Vanity Fair party at Cannes was crammed with beautiful women. But they were astonishingly insecure - 20th May
 * Woman wants it all her way'' - There's nothing feminist about today's entitled brigade - 7th May
 * election 2010: Nick Clegg has taught us never to underestimate the nerd'' - The rise and rise of Ed the intern is a story of our times - 30th April (General Election 2010)
 * volcano made you do it'' - According to the website IllicitEncounters.com, the eruptions from Eyjafjallajökull have prompted a huge surge in the number of Brits embarking on affairs - 23rd April
 * looks good, but can he make a decent cheese soufflé?'' - The accepted approach has been to find a man you quite like and then change everything about him. But you can’t - 16th April
 * it, cabbie. Reticence does us good'' - Celia Walden is appalled by the modern scourge of soul-baring and self-help guff - 9th April
 * urge to trifle with Gordon Brown'' - Celia Walden describes the sudden temptation to plunge her spoon into the prime ministerial dessert - 26th March
 * touching, men never stop carrying on about sex'' - The middle-aged male story-teller has been caught up in an unseemly bout of teenage self-titillation - 19th March
 * men are on beauty strike'' - Well-groomed actors have turned into vagrant-like bearded figures huddled in corners wearing beanie hats and thick-rimmed glasses - 8th March
 * Fashion Week: Must it take a fire alarm to warm the ice queens' hearts?'' - An incident at Russian supermodel Natalia Vodianova's Love Ball on Wednesday finally brought out the industry's more genial side - 26th February
 * need to be fed their oats not brand messages'' - Celia Walden can't help but think that over-management of sportsmen doesn protect them from the pitfalls of fame -19th February
 * detest hen parties - which is why I'm arranging one'' - Celia Walden is planning a hen night with no no games of "Did you ever...", no pink antennae headbands, no squealing over the arrival of the profiteroles - 12th February
 * booze and sex – what a fascinating combination'' - The heady mix of posh, drunken romps in an all-female Cambridge college is just so irresistible - 6th February
 * petty lies say more about us than grand confessions'' - Sometimes people lie with such conviction that it becomes a personal truth, says Celia Walden, who has read all the Harry Potter books - 4th February
 * on wheels are a real pain'' - When one of the wheelies rolled over my shoes and branded them with slime, my rage boiled over - 29th January
 * whipping boy has a lot to learn'' - My memories of work placements aren't exactly edifying - 22nd January
 * sense of humour loss was terminal'' - Marooned in Heathrow airport, Celia Walden experiences 'queue flatline', a sort of protective brain-slump - 15th January
 * on you gobslotches, sharpen up those insults'' - Where did all the good put-downs go - 1st January



Articles: 2009

 * don't want every Tom, Dick and Harry calling me Celia'' - Since when did first-name terms become acceptable etiquette - 18th December
 * Sarko, most French people do not jog'' - The whole fitness gig doesn't suit the French, who would rather focus on pleasure than pain - 11th December
 * Woods and the Kellogs Variety Pack approach to women'' - The star golfer was apparently not content to settle with one sort of woman for the rest of his life - 4th December
 * is other people... on their mobile phones'' - The natural reticence that should kick in with the knowledge that 40 strangers are listening to your conversation is often absence - 27th November
 * tough being a giant in Hollywood'' - When I first met Richard Gere, it was all I could do not to point and laugh - 20th November
 * makes herself at home in an Asian pink wonderland'' - Chinese women see nothing wrong with wanting to distance themselves from their studiously uglified Cultural Revolution counterparts - 13th November
 * French have caught the British disease'' - Once gloriously superior about their moderate drinking, the French seem to be adopting our mode - 30th October
 * season? Spare me the gruesome invitations!'' - Humans have a finite capacity for social graces, and after four years working as a gossip columnist, I've used mine up - 23rd October
 * smooth sounds of Vladimir Putin's Eurovision rival'' - why does the Russian prime minister feels so strongly about the need for Intervision? - 16th October
 * anyone deserves hero status, it’s poor Sarah'' - Standing by your man is as démodé as Bonnie Tyler’s leopard-print tank top and peroxide mane, but we should still admire Sarah Brown - 2nd October
 * Mandelson radiates razzmatazz at London Fashion Week'' - The Business Secretary was in his element at the Burberry party during London Fashion Week - 25th September
 * in with Keith Floyd – but alive to tell the tale'' - The long lunch we enjoyed in 2003, which lasted three days, suggests Keith Floyd was master of the genre - 18th September
 * like Silvio Berlusconi will always pinch my bottom'' - Pity the nurses at Silvio Berlusconi's sex addiction clinic - 25th August
 * can't wait for the finale of the Sarkozy and Carla Bruni soap opera'' - The French President's marriage is like watching the end of Dynasty - 14th August
 * many calories does it take to run a country?'' - As Peter Mandelson confesses to a very lean diet, isn't it hard to stay sharp when you're hungry - 12th August
 * writing's on the wall for Banksy and his secret past'' - Banksy's poke-fun-at-museums impudence was done 100 years ago by Marcel Duchamp and his political opinions are plonkingly conventional - 17th June
 * are losers and winners in this world'' - Cambridge's decision to let students know about their exam results in private is the latest evidence that we are bent on breeding fragility into the young - 4th June
 * Cannes is frivolous and absurd, but I still love it'' - It's tempting to be cynical about Cannes but five years of it hasn't lessened my enjoyment of its sensual delights - 26th May
 * French are wide awake to the joys of life'' - They only sleep more than us because they're so busy living each day to the full - 6th May



News & updates:

 * Walden spies opening at Telegraph - Daily Mail gossip columnist Celia Walden has jumped ship to the Daily Telegraph to write for the diary column in which she made an unlikely appearance two months ago - The Guardian, 11th May 2004
 * Sunday Telegraph's Mandrake goes daily - The Sunday Telegraph's Mandrake column is to replace the Daily Telegraph's Spy column and become a seven-day operation - The Guardian, 6th March 2008



References:


Links:

 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celia_Walden