Diary - 13 December 2017

This year began badly with the death of Alexander Chancellor, former editor of this magazine. He was the most fun of anyone I ever knew. Everyone at his funeral tried to describe his laugh and some even tried to imitate it, but with little success. It was as unique as the boom of the bittern. Explosive, volcanic, often involving quite a lot of spitting, it was also infectious: it was impossible to be glum in his company. Alexander liked to appear a dilettante, but as well as being a brilliant writer and editor, he was an excellent cook and a seriously good pianist. (He even briefly thought of making music his career.) He was also, of course, one of the last of the great lunchers. In fact, I’m sure that was the secret of his success as an editor: we hacks fell over ourselves to write for him, not for the fee, which was often paltry, but for the lunch. I treasure the story that when some American management types came to visit The Spectator and commented on the extraordinary amount of time everyone seemed to spend at lunch, Alexander’s reply was: ‘But how else could you fill the day?’ No wonder he didn’t hit it off with Tina Brown when she hired him to write Talk of the Town for the New Yorker. According to her recent Vanity Fair Diaries, she had decided that it was a mistake to sit next to anyone for more than 25 minutes at lunch because ‘No one has more than that to give, in my view.’ Ha! Alexander seemed to have all the time in the world to give — and how we miss him now.