REPORT 45    SEPTEMBER 2006

"Actually," said the Canadian cabbie, "It’s really pronounced ‘Balliol’. . ."

I hate seeming like a grumpy old man, which seems to be the fate of anyone over a certain age who complains about anything at all, but even so there are moments when, curmudgeonly or not, one is obliged to complain. The Spectator is a case in point. I have been an occasional contributor to this magazine for well over forty years and a more or less regular reader. Now , at last, I’m beginning to feel that I have given up on it.

The latest copy arrived this morning and had a diary written by Rachel Johnson, daughter of Stanley and sister of Boris. Not only was she allowed to plug two of her own books she also managed to write an entire page from Mexico without once mentioning the amazing disputed election in which the so-called "right-wing" candidate, Felipe Calderon defeated the "left-wing" Lopez Obrador by just under 250,000 votes in an election in which both sides recorded around forty million apiece. For all sorts of reasons and in all sorts of ways it’s the most fascinating political story of the year.

I’m biassed because my daughter Emma and son-in-law Leonel were at Harvard with Calderon a year or two ago and Leonel was involved in his internet stuff. Even so it’s an amazing story with a seven-man election tribunal finding for Calderon, Obrador’s supporters blockading the centre of Mexico City, a final result/judgement promised by September 6th. The whole country seems to be teetering on the brink of civil war. Tear gas in the streets for the first time the other day. And so on. It’s predictable that the British Press which has an almost criminally poor record when it comes to reporting Central and South America should almost completely ignore the story but that a supposedly serious political magazine such as the Spectator should carry a whole page with a Mexico bye-line at the top without even mentioning the election...well, it beggars belief.

My disenchantment with the MSM (Main Stream Media) has been compounded by a curious incident involving Toronto. Canada has a reputation for being dull, an image which is perpetuated largely by pundits who have never been there and know little or nothing about it. I differ because I have known the place since my father was seconded to the Canadian Army in the 1950s and I worked for a Toronto-based national colour magazine as an Associate Editor in the 1970s.. The family lived at 443 Balliol Street, next to Merton, and known to the natives as "B’lloil" with the accent on the second syllable. As a graduate of Balliol College, Oxford I found this usage rather lamentable. Oh that sounds pompous. It was just irritating to have part of one’s past so reprehensibly mispronounced. Then one day I got a cab at the airport and asked the driver to take me home to "B’lloil".

"Actually," said the Canadian cabbie, "It’s really pronounced ‘Balliol’. It’s named after an Oxford College." I haven’t felt so chastened since the time, in the same city, when a complete stranger berated me for wearing a rhubarb and custard striped MCC tie in China Town. He didn’t think I knew what it was, let alone that I was entitled to it. I was too flabbergasted to protest.

Anyway a friend in PR asked me out to Toronto on a fact-finding trip to explore some interesting socio-cultural changes - new Frank Gehry designed buildings , museums, galleries, restaurants and so on. I was enthusiastic. Together we approached the travel editors at some of out greatest national newspapers and magazines. Could we sell the idea. Could we, hell. No they had a back log of Canadian stuff already. No, they just weren’t interested. No, no, no. If I thought the travel pages of the national press were full of riveting, well written, informative pieces I might, just, not protest. But...Oh well, swallow hard, regroup, get on with writing the books and try not to be like Victor Meldrew.

We had a wonderful afternoon the other day when sixteen of us crammed on to the terrace overlooking Fowey harbour, enjoyed a convivial and delicious lunch - Plymouth gin and elderflower fizz is a good starter and Penny did an amazing salmon in home-made aspic as well as a Bloody Mary soup from Prue Leith’s fish book and a raspberry panacotta from Nigel Slater. Then, straight after coffee, the Red Arrows. Oh Wow! I think Tony Blair wants to do away with them but the Royal Air Force’s display team is stunning, particularly flying over Fowey harbour and doing aerobatics right in front of us.

The sun shone throughout and our group included a well-known composer, an ex-Reuters hack, the head of communications at the Eden Project, a couple who had met when working at Rothschilds, a policewoman specialising in financial fraud, a couple of TV producers and so on. We were probably a bit media-oriented but I thought we were interesting and the conversation was lively, intelligent and wide-ranging. All right, I would say that, and it’s probably the gin talking but it was great fun. Everybody bar a couple of visiting United Nations officials lived in Devon or Cornwall.Yet still I have a sense talking to Londoners in particular that they take the view that everyone who lives outside the M25 ring road is a boorish yokel.

On a professional note I am really, finally within sight of the end of A Death on the Ocean Wave even though, to some people’s shock, horror I still don’t know who done it or even whether it was done at all as no body has turned up yet. A watery grave perhaps? I always argue that if I don’t know who the murderer is until the very end then the reader won’t guess either/ I’ve also delivered a first rough draft of Princess Margaret and got an almost immediate and helpful response from Ion Trewin who is editing it. Ion strikes me as an exemplary editor and it’s a pleasure to work with him. Hard work and demanding but you just know that you’re in safe hands and that under his supervision your work is going to get better and better. I wish I could say the same for all editors.

It would be good too if you felt that editors were actually in charge of things. I remember the scandal years ago when in a post mortem conference at the Sunday Times it became evident that the editor Denis Hamilton had not actually read a piece in the previous Sunday’s papers. It was considered an absolute that the editor read every word in his paper - and, therefore, that the buck stopped there. Then papers started to become larger and larger and it was obvious that editors had too many words in their papers to be able to read every one. Or maybe editors became lazier and more self-important. Maybe both.

I was reminded of this by the glut of John Betjeman stuff. It’s his centenary so there’s a new one-volume edition of Bevis Hillier’s book, a new single volume biography from A.N.Wilson - TV shows from Rick Stein, Griff Rhys-Jones and heaven knows who else. Not to mention reviews and profiles without number. I interviewed him once and he inscribed my copy of the collected poems, rather wittily thanking my Uncle Basil and Aunt Betty for having given it to me as a present.. I thought we got on rather well. We wandered round his favourites nooks and crannies of the City of London, we had a cup of tea. I wrote my interview, for the Daily Express, in rhyming couplets that began,

John Betjeman, that balding bard
Believes that London is becoming marred
By buildings which are ill-designed
And of the undistinguished kind.
He adds with ill-concealed derision
That once or twice some crass decision...