You have to admire boldness in a writer. It’s actually a rare commodity these days — most of us don’t have the talent or the temperament or the energy to write exactly the way we feel, or we’re too sensible or too ambitious. James Delingpole is an exception. Week after week, with enviable fearlessness, he writes a television column in which he admits that he really only likes watching documentaries about the second world war on the History Channel. Then, from time to time, he breaks off from writing about the telly to complain about how little money he makes and how unfair it is that he hasn’t been given a lucrative column on the Mail or the Telegraph. In journalistic terms this is what Sir Humphrey Appleby would call ‘courageous’. Whenever I bump into James, part of me wants to shake him and shout, ‘No! You’re going about it the wrong way! You’ve got to play it cool! If you want your column you’ve got to pretend that it’s the last thing you want, and then you might get it!’ But obviously I don’t, as I’m far too polite. Besides, the other part of me admires that reckless candour.

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