DIARY
If journalism is the first draft of history, then I suppose the newspaper profile must be the first sketch of a biography. Though In my case it's gone well beyond first draft. For the profile of me featured in last week's Sunday Telegraph must be the fourth or fifth to appear in the space- of a few Years. As a frequently interviewed subject You quickly settle into a routine. A journal- ist rings, 5.b They are doing a profile. They want an interview. At home, if possible (that, of course is for the local colour). They arrive. Each eyes the other up, rather wanly. Impressions are formed and the conversation takes off or sags accordingly. To an extent you are in charge. You say as much or as little about yourself as you wish. And you shape it into whatever patterns You want as well You are, if you know what You are doing, talking your autobiography. I generally say more rather than less. In part this is a matter of personality. I'm an incorrigible talker and a bit of an exhibi- tionist: 'better blatant than latent', that Marv. ellous slogan of Gay Liberation, quickly became my own motto. But the self-revelation is also a question of policy. If You're open about something, the press loses interest in it however sensational it 'night otherwise be. I, for instance, am an open homosexual who has spent much of my career teaching university students who, until the recent reduction of the age of con- sent, were mostly under age. My openness was and is a protection. This is a lesson that Conservative backbenchers, whose libidos are bigger than their brains, would do well to learn.
But what you say is only part of the story. Journalists can stand even less of reality than the generality of mankind. What they are really interested in is what other journalists have said. This is where the idea of profiles as successive drafts comes into play. The Starkey profile indus- try took off with the Daily Mail article headed `Is This the Rudest Man in Britain?' The piece was a ragbag of old quotes, and even the headline was supplied by the Venerable George Austin, the Archdeacon of York, who was feeling understandably sore after I'd declared on Moral Maze that his fatness and smugness 111, ade me want to vomit. But the phrase the Rudest Man in Britain' gave me my 15 minutes of fame and a modest fortune (the next day, for instance, I was offered my wn show on Talk Radio on the quite mis- taken assumption that I'd be horribly rude to everybody who rang in, just like a real American shock-jock). Finally, it labelled me as good profile material. DAVID STARKEY Next to have a go was Katharine Hadley in the Tatter. Under the heading of `A Talent to Abuse' she assembled a gold- en treasury of my rudest remarks and placed me in a tradition that had begun with Swift and culminated in Wilde. Starkey the Wit was born. Then, in the Independent on Sunday, Geraldine Bedell discovered the man behind that mask and decided that the sabre-toothed tiger of the Moral Maze was really a bit of a pussy-cat. And perhaps a bit pathetic too — this with lots of detail about my long-corrected club- feet.
What twist would my latest Boswell, Nigel Farndale of the Sunday Telegraph, give to the well-worn theme? From the moment he walked through the door, I decided I liked him. Well-spoken (as it used to be called before society and vowels both shifted down a gear) and mildly scruffy, he was a clear case of Oxbridge modulating effortlessly into Fleet Street. And the Varsity air wasn't only a matter of appearances: he turned the interview into a kind of tutorial. He'd been a good student; I wanna gal just like the gal that married dear old Dad.' done his reading and come up with an orig- inal thesis: I was the new Dr Johnson. At the time, I giggled rather helplessly at the inflated nature of the comparison. But of course I was secretly flattered. And the self-satisfaction grew on my first reading of the piece in print. I even thought of a point of resemblance which had eluded Farndale. For both Johnson and I share a fondness for fast travel: he defined happiness as `driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pret- ty woman'; I rode a motor-bike for many years. The photograph which accompanied my Sunday Telegraph profile even showed me on a classic Norton with gown billowing and the caption 'The Wild Don'. But, it has to be admitted, no woman, pretty or other- wise, ever rode pillion. There is another difference, alas. I am no Johnson. Dr John Ashworth, the former Director of the LSE, made a shrewder assessment of my place in the general scheme of things: 'You are, David,' he told me after the furore over the Daily Mail profile, 'the Gilbert Harding de nos fours.' There was another Johnsonian parallel which eluded Farndale. I was blunt about broadcasting for money. Farndale chose to interpret my remark as an ungra- cious attack on my listeners. But Johnson was famously frank about writing for money. Does that mean he was contemptu- ous about his readers?
The peg for the Sunday Telegraph pro- file was the start of another series of Moral Maze this week. First thing this morning I received a call from the programme researcher about the choice of subject. 'Call Nick Ross are doing the Bridgewater Three, so we'll tackle cloning sheep,' she said. My heart sank and I said so. Yet another debate about animal genetic engineering would be as exciting as counting sheep or flogging dead horses. But no doubt, if it happens, I'll argue as vigorously as the rest. Why? Edward Pearce, a previous member of the Moral Maze team, used to say that the only thing he was unhappy with about the programme (apart from the money, of course) was the appearance of the word `moral' in the title. I feel the same. For `morality' is rather like 'principle'. In my experience, people say they're acting on principle only when they've no sensible rea- son for what they're about to do. And peo- ple (usually the same people) invoke morality, especially absolute morality, for the same lack of reason. I am, in short, the amoralist of Moral Maze. And my mission in this series will be to change the catch- phrase of the programme from 'Shut up, David' to 'This is not a moral question'. At least it will get the producer cross — and perhaps make the listener think.
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