SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16
Amanda Holden threw an End of Summer barbecue at her beautiful house in the infamous Chipping Norton part of the Cotswolds. Fine wine flowed, delicious pork baps were devoured, and by 5pm I found myself, for reasons that remain worryingly unclear, lying on a gigantic four-poster double bed with our joyfully intoxicated hostess and an eclectic array of acting talent including Charlie Condou, Angela Griffin, Lisa Faulkner, Tamzin Outhwaite and Tracy-Ann Oberman.
‘I’ve always fancied a thespian orgy!’ I announced, to general horror. Later, Amanda gave me an exuberant drunken cuddle and loudly declared: ‘Piers is my 4am friend! If I was in real trouble at 4am, I know I could call him and he’d get out of bed and help me.’ ‘Or get INTO bed and help you,’ I replied.
Amanda’s the funniest, most warmhearted, outrageous and generous person I know in this notoriously shallow, grasping and tawdry industry, writes Piers Morgan
As her guests, who also included Ronan Keating and Alesha Dixon, recoiled in yet more revolted horror, Amanda cackled so loudly I feared her neighbours David Cameron and Jeremy Clarkson might think we were holding an illicit witches’ coven.
She truly has the filthiest laugh in showbiz, after Barbara Windsor, and a potty mouth to match it. But Amanda’s also the funniest, most warmhearted, outrageous and generous person I know in this notoriously shallow, grasping and tawdry industry.
And she’s incredibly resourceful, very quick-thinking and sly as a fox. Which is why, when it comes to whom I would call at 4am to help in MY darkest hour, she’d be top of the list.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 17
There’s currently an unofficial – or maybe official? – internal competition to see which of the Guardian’s lentil-munching, sandal-wearing, PC-crazed, snowflake staff can be most offensive about me.
Today, a new front-runner emerged in the shape of television critic Fiona Sturges, who, in a review of Good Morning Britain, said I was ‘cartoonishly grotesque’ and ‘ghastly’, accused me of ‘barking like an elephant seal’, and suggested Susanna Reid will soon be found ‘sitting beatifically next to Morgan’s head skewered on a pole.’
Ms Sturges did grudgingly concede my performance on GMB has prompted ‘a spike in ratings and round-the-clock bonfires on social media’ but concluded: ‘There was a time when breakfast telly, with its bland yet jolly presenters, terrible sweaters and sunshiney motifs, was about easing viewers into the day. In Morgan’s sweaty hands, it’s about getting them up, slapping them about a bit and sending them off to work with a black eye. Thanks but no thanks. I’m going back to bed.’
Hmm. Methinks the lady doth protest too much. I’m only surprised fulminating Fifi didn’t add the words ‘…with Piers’ to the end of that final sentence.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 18
In my local Sainsbury’s this morning, I overheard the following conversation between a member of the check-out staff and a customer: ‘Would you like a 5p bag to help save the planet?’ Customer: ‘What’s the point in that when Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un are about to destroy the planet with a nuclear war? Just a complete waste of 5p.’
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19
For the past few years, a benign lump on the nape of my neck has slowly but surely grown to the point where my sons call me ‘Quasimodo’.
Today, I finally had it expertly gouged out by a plastic surgeon in London. As he sliced open my back and began the removal process, one of the nurses, an Australian lady, offered her views on GMB: ‘I love Richard Arnold,’ she said, referring to our showbiz correspondent, with whom I have regular antagonistic sparring sessions. ‘I really look forward to when he comes on at 6.50am and 7.50am.’ ‘Do you enjoy anything else on the show?’ I asked, my face head down in a pillow as the surgeon continued to aggressively scrape, and blood spurted from my gaping wound.
There was a lengthy, uncomfortable silence. Ironically, Mr Arnold makes no secret of viewing me as an irritating lump of gristle that he’d like urgently removed from GMB, surgically if necessary. And judging by this nurse’s reaction, he’s not alone.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21
On the day it’s been revealed nobody wants to be called Nigel any more, my eyes turned closer to home on the latest figures from the UK Office for National Statistics. Apparently, there were just nine baby boys named Piers born in 2016, compared with 71 in 1996. At this rate, Piers will soon be as extinct as Nigel.
Given I first rose to prominence in the mid-Nineties as pretty much the only famous Piers in Britain (other than the late, great astronaut Piers Sellers), this can be taken two ways: either parents have been repulsed at the thought of their child having any connection to me, or they simply realise it would be a terrible burden on their little ones to even have to try to live in my shadow.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22
Jeremy Corbyn has offered an olive branch after snubbing me in Spanish at the GQ Awards while speaking to Arsenal star Hector Bellerin.
‘There is a peace process between Piers Morgan and me,’ he told ITV News at Labour’s conference in Brighton.
‘You do have a lot in common,’ said the interviewer, Joe Pike. ‘You both support Arsenal and you both opposed the Iraq War?’ ‘There is more that unites us than divides us,’ admitted Corbyn, ‘and I have to say he was absolutely brilliant over the Iraq War and I was happy to work with him at that time.’
Awwww… muchas gracias, Señor Corbyn!