In praise of Real Life

“I have some thanks and apologies for my parents,” said Melissa Kite at her book launch last night. “Apologies?” said her dad, from the corner. “Yes, I’m afraid so. For years, you have been telling people that your daughter is a successful journalist in London. Now, the world knows that I’m a complete car crash.”

The book in question was Real Life, drawn from Melissa’s column for The Spectator over the years, charting her various disasters and occasional triumphs. As her loyal army of readers will attest, it’s utterly compelling, a column carried by the quality of her writing. It’s a journal of modern Britain: struggles with the council in London and the dramas of her life (and horses) in the country.

When I became editor, I made only a few changes to our columnist lineup and one was to make Melissa’s column weekly rather than fortnightly. I worried at the time if she could pull it off: could enough random accidents befall one woman, to provide enough material for such a column? But having previously shared an office with Melissa in the press gallery of the Commons, I knew that she wasn’t making it up. Every day, she seemed to have an incredible, and hilarious, story to tell, usually at her own expense. She tells how one Spectator reader wrote and asked “Dear Ms Kite, how come you are constitutionally incapable of crossing the street without having a catastrophe of some sort, usually involving a man?” She gives the answer in her book, Real Life, now in the shops.