eccentric lifestyle was allegedly the inspiration for Martin Amis's character Rory Plantagenet in his novel The Information. In 1998, Sebastian Shakespeare took over the column, entertaining Londoners for the next fifteen years, through four editors and three prime ministers. After consecutively winning Editorial Intelligences 'Diary of the Year' award in 2009 and 2010, he remarked: "Diarists pride themselves on being insiders. They get access to all the best parties while the photographers and news reporters are left on the doorstep. And we also gently nibble the hand that feeds us canapés... Mischief is our mission and mockery is our weapon. In this age of spin, diarists have never been more important." Shakespeare departed in December 2013, and the column was then edited by Other Club founder Joy Lo Dico. Ayesha Hazarika was appointed the column's editor in July 2019. Editors Robert Bruce Lockhart (1928) Harold Nicolson (1930) Randolph Churchill (1938) Tudor Jenkins (1946) Nicholas Tomalin (1960) Donald Edgar (1962) Roger Berthoud (1965) Magnus Linklater (1967) Paul Callan (1969) Jeremy Deedes (1971) Max Hastings (1976) Adrian Woodhouse (1978) Geoffrey Wheatcroft (1985) Richard Addis (1986) Sarah Sands (1988) Rory Knight Bruce (1990) Susannah Herbert (1995) Sebastian Shakespeare (1998) Joy Lo Dico (2014) Charlotte Edwardes (2018) Ayesha Hazarika (2019) Robbie Smith (2020) Robbie Griffiths (2022) Quotes "The Diary and its team of clever young writers were in a way Beaverbrook's spies, sending out signals to the world about the trivial details of great or celebrated people". – A. N. Wilson, Betjeman (2007) "The Londoner's Diary should, on the whole, try to avoid treating its readers like ignorant idiots. An innocuous paragraph about Henry Moore is ruined today by the patronising remark: 'Moore is now regarded as probably the greatest sculptor in the West'." – Charles Wintour, editor of the Evening Standard, letter to the editor of Londoner's Diary (1974) "The Londoner's Diary was always the central feature of the paper, a touch of class in something of a workaday wilderness ... Its readers have always included both the humble and the mighty, for the Standard circulates widely through the corridors of power." – Roger Wilkes, Scandal: A Scurrilous History of Gossip (2002) See also Evening Standard'' References External links Evening Standard Londoner's Diary London newspapers Daily newspapers published in the United Kingdom Free daily newspapers Gossip columnists London Evening Standard