I am celebrity-spotting in Michael’s, the Manhattan restaurant that serves as the staff canteen for the New York media business. Tina Brown, who is rushing round town promoting her book on Princess Diana, has phoned through to say she is running late. So I sit and watch as the big names – and some familiar faces I can’t quite place – troop in. By the time Brown arrives, Michael’s is packed and I’m just about the only person in the place I’ve never heard of.

Brown has been a star on this stage since she left London in 1983 to become editor of Vanity Fair. A famously talented networker, she seems to know everybody in the place, from Barry Diller, the internet mogul, in one corner, to Peter Brown, the former Beatles manager, in another.