This is going to be a wibbling and self-indulgent column, so don’t say you haven’t been warned. There are various reasons for this, but chief among them is the fact that I’m on holiday right now, in St Tropez. It’s possible that you already know this, if the Spectator overlords have decided to put one of those ‘dateline: St Tropez’ bits at the top, but it’s also possible that they thought it was a bit wibbling and self-indulgent for that, and didn’t bother.
And anyway, I’m not actually in St Tropez, but in an idyllic hill village a few miles outside. This is a state of affairs I hope will long continue, what with the modern St Tropez being full of plastic surgery, boat fumes, and the temptation to buy overpriced sunglasses. Alas, that rather depends upon the argument I’m due to have with my wife when she gets back from the boulangerie. It’s market day in St Tropez, which means she’ll have awoken with a powerful urge to go and stand in the baking sun, surrounded by leathery harridans in sequinned kaftans, poking competitively at scarves. I’m of the view that few things are certain in this life, but one of them is that you don’t want to go into St Tropez on market day. Look, there’s shared opinion for you, already.
The other thing that has prompted me towards self-indulgent wibbling was a comment under something I wrote, from a reader. ‘I like your columns,’ it said, to paraphrase, ‘only I don’t know what to make of you. Sometimes you’re spot on, but sometimes you seem to be all over the place.’ I’ve been thinking about that. My initial response was to think, ‘ah-ha, my friend, and thus it must be you who is all over the place!’ But then I thought about it a bit reflectively, because I am, after all, on holiday, and I thought, what’s so wrong about being all over the place, anyway?
Obviously the goal of any columnist is to get everything right. Me, though, I’m rather of the view that ‘getting everything right’ is sort of like ‘getting everything eaten’ — it’s an admirable goal, but you’ve got to put in the jaw-work with every bite. Or rather, and to switch metaphors quite abruptly, some columnists seem to reckon opinion is like a maze with a key, and that once you’ve found that key (keep turning right?) you can navigate through anything. But I reckon it’s more like a maze without a key. At every corner, you have to decide anew.
It won’t do, professionally speaking. Not in the long term. Because, with all the best generalists, you get the topic and you read the name, and you’re halfway there already. The pleasure, in reading, just comes from seeing how they travel. You needn’t even agree with them. Some of my favourite columnists — Richard Littlejohn, Simon Heffer, Johann Hari, Melanie Phillips — are consistently and beautifully wrong about almost everything.
What I really ought to do, I suppose, is stop this hand-wringing, Prince Charles-style fannying about, and find a schtick, and stick to it. I did a stand-up comedy course once, and they kept going on about Unique Selling Point, or USP, the half-sentence that makes you different. Everybody else has one. Matthew Parris is the Least Nasty Tory. Rod Liddle is the Left-Winger on the Right. James Delingpole is the British P.J. O’Rourke, and Charles Moore is the Defender of the Shires. I could go on. It’s the difference between having opinions, I suppose, and having a world view.
I’ve got to get me one of those. Or maybe I’ve got one, and I just can’t see it. As the poet said, ‘O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us, to see oursels as others see us.’ From here, I’m not sure I’m even consistently wibbling and self-indulgent.
‘All over the place’ sounds a bit too much like ‘unprincipled’ for my liking, though, and I’m not sure that’s fair. I do have some beliefs. From my deckchair, I’ve been conducting a holiday audit. I believe that Israel is nuts and problematic, for starters, but also that her most energised critics are invariably idiots. I see no necessary reason why this should be the case, but simple observation indicates that it just is. In general, I believe people bang on about Israel/Palestine far too much. I also believe this might be because it is one of the world’s few trouble-spots in which principled activists can also enjoy beaches, nightclubs and pizza.
I don’t mind the state being in charge of some things, provided those things work properly. I have no passionate views about flat taxes or grammar schools, one way or the other. On complex matters, I believe in deferring to people who know more than I do. I have never understood why some consider this stance a sign of wisdom in relation to health, finances, rocket science, etc, but a sign of gross idiocy and latent communism in relation to an ecosystem’s ability to process and consume carbon dioxide. I also believe I may have a tendency to sneer at people who don’t agree with me. I’m okay with this.
Anyway, had I the inclination, I genuinely believe I could develop a passing understanding of almost any human endeavour in a single weekend, up to and including foreign languages. At present, I speak no foreign languages. I think I might not be as clever as I think I am, and I worry this makes no logical sense. I’m inordinately proud of my philosophy degree, especially considering I didn’t do very well in it and didn’t enjoy it at all.
I believe I would not be the man I am without drunken journeys home on night buses. I believe myself to be both populist and egalitarian, but am occasionally shocked by my own intellectually snobbish vehemence as regards what other people watch on television. I do not believe that Britain has talent.
I’m a big fan of wibbling self-indulgence, but I believe it works best when you shoehorn in a wider point. In crafting an article, I also believe that structure is as important as content. I believe that very few things are certain in this life, but one of them is that you don’t want to go into St Tropez on market day. Although she’ll be back in a moment, and I doubt it’s up to me.
Hugo Rifkind is a writer for the Times.
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