JAMES DELINGPOLE
They did try to get some sort of military type to do the Diary this week — Colin Powell, maybe, or that SAS bloke who fought in Afghanistan — but, as you see, they failed. What I couldn't quite decide was whether to keep it light, evasive and undepressing or whether to mention the war. But then I thought, 'How can I not mention the war? It's all any of us can bloody think about.' A friend of mine at Canary Wharf said, 'Well, at least you don't work in a prime terrorist target.' I said, 'Yeah, but my wife does and that's worse. If it had to be one of us, I'd much rather it were me than her. Don't you feel the same about yours?' My friend said, 'I'd better not answer lest my reply reveal me as a heartless, selfish bastard.'
One big effect it has had on me has been to revive my rampant hypochondria. Where once I put down my daily headaches and tired limbs to the pressures of parenthood, I now recognise them as the onset of anthrax which. I read in one of those cheery 'London top target for NBC terrorism' articles, mimics the effects of flu. But living under the shadow of death doesn't half concentrate the mind. I now intend to write a novel every year instead of every four years. And to jolly well get on with that long-planned screenplay: a horror story provisionally entitled Scottish Dancing. With luck, I shall then make enough money to quit London and not worry too much about the massive fall in property values caused by everyone else doing the same.
0 r am I unduly morbid? I did wonder, after a lunch I went to in honour of rugged, action-man author, Sebastian (Perfect Storm) Junger. He was talking about General Massoud, the Afghani leader with whom he spent a month for his new book, Fire. The Lion of Panjshir's assassination just before 11 September was disastrous, Junger reckoned, not just because he was by far the most charismatic opposition leader, but also because he was the best military all-rounder — as comfortable with the deplacement of mortars in tiny skirmishes as he was with large-scale troop movements on several fronts. Later, largely prompted by me I fear, there was much gloomy discussion about how awful it must have been in the World Trade Center and whether or not we would have survived. I reckoned I wouldn't have because I'd once seen a documentary saying that skyscrapers were designed to withstand aircraft flying into them, so I would have probably been too relaxed about trying to escape. Then I announced to the small table of publishing
bods and fellow authors, 'But this is the Big Subject, don't you think? The fact that we're all going to die yet we go on acting as if we're not.' There was a sudden silence. Everyone stared intently at their plates, apart from Junger who murmured, 'Urn, yeah,' and gave me a very strange, intense look. What it might have said was, 'Truly, you are a man of great insight.' What I think it actually said was, 'Jesus, who invited you and what planet are you on?' I still think I'm right, though.
0 n the first Sunday after the disaster we made a rare family visit to our parish church in search of an answer to the question we all ask at times like these: 'How could a loving God allow such things to happen?' What we got instead was a dreary, waffling sermon about the parable of the lost coin, which had obviously been written weeks before, with a tiny, non-committal, non-judgmental reference to terrorism tacked on at the end. Maybe it was just a Camberwell thing (it's depressing how many people round here think that the Americans had it coming to them), because my father-in-law tells me that the sermon
they had at Chelsea Old Church was absolutely spot-on. But it did get me thinking, If the CofE can't rise to big occasions like this, then really it might just as well give up.'
May I lighten and lower the tone with a filthy, cringe-inducing true story? Tragically, I have been told that the operative word is just too rude for the Diary. So when I insert the euphemism `molegriped', please try to think very, very dirty. OK, so this friend of my brother was at this druggy party where he didn't know anybody and he found himself in the garden sharing a joint with a group of strangers. For some reason, everyone was taking turns to reveal their sexual preferences. One girl rather shocked everyone by piping up, 'I like being molegriped hard. And when I say hard, I mean, really, really hard.' An hour or two later, this chap was back indoors, still knowing hardly anyone, when across the room he recognised a familiar face. He sidled up to the girl and tried reminding her, as politely as he could, of their earlier encounter. 'This is a bit embarrassing,' he said, 'but the only thing I know about you is that you like being molegriped really, really hard.' The girl blanched and looked back in absolute horror. At which point this friend of my brother realised: it was a different girl.
Normally, that's the sort of thing that happens to me rather than to other people. In this new autobiographical novel I'm writing I've been disturbed to notice that almost every chapter ends with the hero being laughed at, scorned or humiliated. 'Oh, my God,' it struck me in a moment of paranoia. 'What if the sole purpose of my existence is to make a prat of myself on every occasion, just so that I can amass enough material to fill my next column or write my next novel?' 'If there's a commission at the end of it, who cares?' advised a novelist friend. Which I guess is why my publishing editor took Tiffany and me to Carluccio's the other night. Being dined by one's publisher: this is the sort of thing you spend your twenties dreaming about. Unfortunately, by the time you hit your thirties it all seems eerily normal, rather in the same way as it does having friends who are MPs or partners of City firms or divorcees. We got talking about the purpose of editors: meddling fools or a vital check on authors' rampaging egoism? Naturally, I'm with Martin Amis on this one. When The Information was being touted round, there were two offers at the £500,000 asking price. One said, 'We love the book, it's perfect, don't change a word.' And the other said, 'We're not quite sure about the subplot.' Using your skill and judgment, see if you can guess which option Mart took.
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