Had it been anyone else who mentioned it I would probably have taken no notice, but it was the Mail & Guardian‘s Tom Eaton. I don’t remember the exact quote but it appeared in his Viva Gazania column on the Brett Kebble murder. Before he fully got into his stride Tom made some pointed comments about how unforgivable it is for a columnist to mention his own experiences and how weaving oneself into one’s own column is beyond the pale. I’ve heard this sentiment expressed before but generally from lesser writing talents than Eaton. I’ve also been frequently reminded there is an unwritten rule that you should never write about other columnists. Unfortunately this column is about to flout all these conventions so if you are of a sensitive disposition I suggest you flip the page and look at the cartoon at this point.
As a newspaper columnist who frequently refers to his own gloriously sybaritic lifestyle and enjoys the odd verbal joust with columnists’ manqué I’m afraid I have to disagree. The late great Bernard Levin who contributed one of the finest columns The Times newspaper ever ran frequently wove himself into his writing. I fondly remember a detailed description of an expensive meal he ate and his regular sorties to the great opera houses of the world were meticulously documented. Was this to make those of us who hadn’t a hope of getting a ticket envious of Levin’s lifestyle? Well, I’m sure there are some sad demented souls who believe this to be the case but I prefer to take the view that Levin was sharing his good fortune with us through his meticulous prose. I may not have been at Bayreuth when the white smoke went up on the discovery of a new Brünnhilde or Wotan but I experienced a vicarious joy through Levin’s articles.
Levin was by no means the only great columnist to weave himself into his own articles. Pick up a copy of The Spectator and read Paul Johnson’s column and you will, as like as not, find him describing a personal experience. In fact the “Speccie” frequently breaks the hallowed rules of South African journalism. The late Jeffrey Bernard’s Low Life column was all about his hopelessly chaotic life. It was famously described as “a weekly suicide note” to the readers. The High Life column written by Taki also frequently mentions the writer’s lifestyle.
Auberon Waugh never observed the curious rule of not mentioning himself in his long running column and even the Speccie’s financial writer, Christopher Fildes, is guilty of the sin of reminding readers of previously dispensed wisdom and has even (gasp) been known to start an article with the dread word “I”.
Now I admit that using The Spectator as evidence against the practice of personalising columns is hardly overwhelming but few would deny that the magazine carries some of the finest writing in the UK. So what’s good enough for them is good enough for me and I shall continue to eschew the precious writing practices of my contemporaries and do precisely as I please in my own column. A letter writer to Business Day with the unlikely name of Dick White, defending editor Peter Bruce’s right to suffer from writer’s block, described my Sunday column as “pathetic puffery”. Well, Dick, it sometimes doesn’t do to think too much and pathetic puffery has served me very well over the years.
The final word goes to a friend of mine in the advertising industry who summed it up perfectly. If you lead a bloody boring existence, drive a crappy car and can’t afford to go anywhere interesting then obviously you’re not going to write about it are you?