Why I’m stepping down after 28 years as The Spectator pop critic

This is my 345th and last monthly column about pop music for The Spectator. I believe I might be the third-longest continuously serving columnist here, after Taki and Peter Phillips. Others have been writing for the magazine for longer, but have occasionally been given time off for good behaviour. You may be astounded to learn that I have not been fired. I, certainly, am astounded. I have been waiting for the tap on the shoulder, or maybe the firm but regretful email, since my first column in May 1987. Eventually I came to realise that the less the editor of the time was interested in my subject, the safer I was. As sheer delight in survival morphed into freakish longevity, I decided it was best to maintain a low profile, to the extent that when the 25th anniversary of the column loomed a couple of years ago, I asked Liz Anderson, legendary arts editor and tireless moral support to any number of anxious columnists, to say nothing to anyone. It’s not that I didn’t want people to make a fuss about it. I’m not that modest. It’s that I didn’t want people to make a fuss about it and then fire me straight afterwards.

This year, though, I have started to feel that I have said almost everything that I have to say on the subject, possibly several times. Once it becomes hard work to write a column, it won’t be long before it becomes hard work to read it. I have also spent a decent chunk of the year in The Spectator’s offices leafing through dusty old binders for a book I am compiling for Christmas 2016, entitled The Spectator Book of Wit, Humour and Mischief. Reading so many wonderful columnists in intense bursts, you see that even the best of them eventually runs out of steam.