Celia Walden



Profile:


Full name: Celia Walden

Area of interest: Lifestyle, celebrity, politics, media

Journals: The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph

Email: spy@telegraph.co.uk

Website:

Blog: DT's: Party Blog (archive)

Representation: Knight Ayton Management

Networks:



Biography:
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, currently edits the 'Spy' diary column (which replaced the longstanding 'Peterborough' diary column, see Telegraph takes Peterborough off the map and Mail targets Telegraph defectors); also writes features for The Sunday Telegraph

Current position: Columnist / Diaryist

Other posts:

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

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

Controversy/Criticism:

Awards/Honours:

Other: Daughter of Conservative politician George Walden; Has been linked romantically to Piers Morgan

Speaking/Appearances:



Books & Debate:


Latest work: Harm's way, 2008 OCLC 227276080

Speaking/Appearances: *The Neophiliacs: Revolution in English Life in the Fifties and Sixties, 1970 OCLC 79984

Current debate: 

The Daily Telegraph:
Column name: Spy

Column remit: Lifestyle, celebrity, politics, media: observations and gossip

Section: Weekdays: News; Saturday: Features

Role: Columnist / Diaryist

Pen-name:

Email: spy@telegraph.co.uk

Website: Spy

Commissioning editor:

Day published: Tuesday to Saturday

Regularity: Frequent

Column format:

Average length:



Articles: 2011

 * 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

