A Londoner's Diary

As chairman of Signature Restaurants which owns The Ivy, Le Caprice and J Sheekey, I'm following with interest the vituperative row between The Sunday Telegraph restaurant critic Matthew Norman and Richard Shepherd of the eponymous restaurant in Westminster. Norman will surely not apologise, and frankly Shepherd would be mad to actually sue, as he has threatened to do.

I'm amazed that after decades in the business he takes critics so seriously.

What they say only really matters when a restaurant is launched: after that, everything is about keeping customers happy and coming back. And moreover, there are so many restaurant reviewers these days I suspect few critics carry as much weight with the dining public as they once did.

Making a fuss about a bad review only communicates it to a wider readership, whereas if you ignore the newspapers, they're all fish- and-chip paper the next day and soon forgotten.

Litigation, however, can go on forever and only makes lawyers rich avoid it like the plague.

There is excitement in our house because Liza, my pharmacist fiancee and I, are to get married in a few weeks. The invitations look terrific, but the embossed address of the church is rather hard to read, so we're pretending it's a deliberate device to make the invites more 'artistic'.

Since we're both papists, we had to attend a day of Roman Catholic instruction about marriage in Twickenham. In reality there's not much religion and plenty of cod therapy about 'conflict resolution', but we get our certificate at the end so it's worth it.

Meanwhile Liza is envious of her friends at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital because they have various impressive and expensive new robots, thanks to the government's generous NHS spending. Her hospital, Great Ormond Street, simply has human nurses, doctors, pharmacists etc.

Call me old-fashioned, but if I was ill I think I'd prefer to be treated by real people rather than robots.

Off to the Marylebone Farmers' Market on Sunday morning. The stall holders are very friendly and the quality of the produce seems high, even if some of the prices are a bit steep.

Marylebone High Street has enjoyed a tremendous renaissance in the past few years, and now we've opened a new Strada restaurant there, which I'm glad to say is doing excellent business.

Although in general I oppose London's giant hereditary landlords, the Howard de Walden estate has done a marvellous job in Marylebone. This was only possible because of its exclusive ownership of the property and a long-term view.

One of the best things to do in London is spot the blue commemorative plaques where famous people lived.

My favourite juxtapositions are the neighbouring ones for Jimmy Hendrix and Handel in Brook Street near Claridge's.

Neither musician was born here, but both chose to make London their home like all the most talented foreigners.

Occasionally, on Sunday afternoons, you can see from our drawing room in Little Venice a gaggle of tourists being given a guided history of our area, including various obscure blue plaques. One day I plan to hijack a group and take them on my alternative route: it would include an imaginary local crack den and an invented brothel, and end outside the flat where Marc Bolan once lived in our street. His song 'Telegram Sam' was the second record I ever bought, when I was about ten: I'm delighted to see it's currently being recycled on a television commercial for beer.

Akind man has written offering to sponsor me for The Freedom of the City of London. Apparently, during the ceremony at The Guildhall, I have to read from a sheepskin parchment, saying, among other things, that 'I will also keep the Queen's peace about my own person.' This seems a delightful idea.

Unfortunately it doesn't give me the right to go about the City with a drawn sword, which is what someone told me I was entitled to do. In fact, it seems there are no privileges attaching to The Freedom of the City, but I might get it anyhow to impress people who don't know any better.

Rather astonishingly I've been made chairman of Channel 4. It's a brilliant station that has all sorts of fantastic shows, as well as stuff guaranteed to get some people hysterical. I like its motto, which includes the phrase 'Make trouble'. I shall attempt to use this as an excuse if I'm ever caught behaving badly. But what with marrying and this job, I shall have to grow up in the near future, I can see

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