JONATHAN DIMBLEBY
As the result of a hip operation (arthritis, but I encourage people to think it was made necessary by a riding accident), I won’t be able to follow hounds again before the ban comes into force next Friday. I used to hunt as a child but gave up the chase in my ‘Ho Ho Ho Chi-Minh, we shall fight and we shall win’ chanting and marching days — by which time I had come to share Oscar Wilde’s feelings about ‘the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable’. But once the bandwagon for the ban started to roll in earnest I found myself with Voltaire and joined the fray once again in the belief that even unspeakables have rights. Anyway I loved it all over again: the waiting, the listening, the uncertainty, the unknown, the freedom, the thrill of the fear, the changing landscape — and the company. I chose to keep all this to myself because I had to chair endless debates between the warring parties on Radio Four’s Any Questions? and Any Answers? as well as my ITV Sunday programme. Now, sadly, that debate is merely a matter for the courts. But I wonder how long it will be before we move on from hunting to fishing, forcing Jeremy Paxman et al. into a similar quandary.
The surgery left me on crutches. Since I had to be in London and could not get myself on to the boat where I usually stay when I am up from the country, I spent a few days at the Savoy. The hotel must have the best view of the Thames in all London. At night all is a-glitter except for the glossy, dark still of the water. At last I understand why, 40 years ago, in his commentary at Churchill’s funeral, my father spoke with such sentiment about ‘this great waterway of ours’. Of course on that day — when Eisenhower, de Gaulle, Adenauer and Menzies joined Attlee, Macmillan, Butler, Alexander and Mountbatten to mourn at St Paul’s — the Thames even as far up as Waterloo Bridge was filled with barges, cranes (dipped in honour) and tugs. London was still a seaport. Now there are only the trip-boats and police launches.
Why, I wonder, has no gallant ridden to the defence of Kirsty Wark (whom I have never met)? She is alleged to have damaged her well-earned reputation for impartiality as a broadcaster because she and her family shared a holiday with a political bigwig who happens to be a longtime friend as well as leader of the Labour party in Scotland. If she is guilty, then so am I — not to mention a host of other colleagues I could name. In fact I think I am an even worse offender. I have both given and accepted hospitality from luminaries not merely from one but all three main parties. I presume, therefore, any credibility I might once have had is now in tatters and I should at once be removed from the chairmanship of Any Questions? and Any Answers? Alternatively, one might conclude that Ms Wark is simply the victim of the petty jealousies that contaminate the Scottish political mafia. At any rate, that is what I have been told by a fellow Scot — his party’s éminence grise in the Commons — who has no discernible axe to grind in the matter but who does know about Scotland.
My enforced idleness means that I had time to read William Hague’s masterly biography of William Pitt. Though he evidently admires — and maybe secretly envies — the youngest prime minister of all time, Hague is scrupulous with the evidence. He depicts Pitt as a brilliant strategist but also as a brazen liar who would happily perjure him self in the Commons to seize the parliamentary crown. The former Tory leader is especially good on his 24-year-old predecessor’s bitter trench warfare against his one-time ally Charles James Fox. It owed virtually nothing to any ideological fault-line between them but a great deal to an intense rivalry for power. Sounds familiar? The PM versus Brown? Harold, of course, versus George.
Which takes me to a grumpy old man’s moan about a wretched misuse of language by more and more writers and reviewers. Inured as I now am to the use of ‘refute’ by those who mean ‘repudiate’, I hope it is not too late to rescue the no less crucial distinction between ‘masterly’ (see above) and ‘masterful’, which is too often used in its stead. A while ago I had the temerity to write a letter gently chiding one such offender who had produced an otherwise masterly translation of the glorious memoirs of Márquez. I suppose she thought I was a tiresome pedant. Maybe I am or perhaps my rebuke should have been more masterful. Whatever the case, I had no reply.
Imust have Brown on the brain. Anyway, a long time ago I found myself beside an empty swimming pool in Cairo with George — by then Lord — Brown. We were both waiting to see President Sadat. At the time I was toying with the idea of a career in politics and I liked to think I had an ideal or two. So I sought the great man’s advice. ‘Very simple,’ the former foreign secretary said in his fruity, sing-song voice. ‘First, assume you will make the Cabinet, then judge which party will be in power the longest while you still have your marbles, and then sign on.’ Next day I got the summons to interview Sadat, who was basking in the relative cool of his palace in Alexandria. When I got back to Cairo, two days later, George was still waiting. I resolved to stick to television.
Finally, I want to share a dilemma with Dear Mary. As lovely friends and family have taken pity on my temporary plight, they have been sending round delicious meals to the farm for me to heat up. Unfortunately, they all tend to use far more salt in their cooking than I do. This means I wake up in the night with a raging thirst. Do I (a) tactfully ask them to use less salt in future; (b) say nothing but continue to get up throughout the night to search blindly for my crutches before stumbling into the bathroom in search of yet another glass of water; or (c) write about my predicament in this space on the off-chance that they see it?
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