Low Life: The Spectator Columns

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October 24, 2014: “But what do I know about art? I don’t even know what I like. And I was feeling so good, so alive, and so in love with London, that I mentally apologized to myself, God and the universe for slipping into judgmental nitwit mode again, and I headed on up the road towards the drumming and the tumults in Trafalgar Square.” My year of drugs June 2005: ‘My friends told me that halfway through the ball they’d gone to look for me and found me unconscious outside, flat on my face on the lawn, next to the naked girl. Someone had taken off my shoes, arranged them neatly sidebyside and set fire to them.’ On lower living

Jeremy Clarke’s last Spectator column, on “the pros and cons of kissing”, appeared in the magazine’s issue of May 6. Fans of the column – he's described as a cult columnist so there must be some such – will no doubt welcome the chance to reacquaint themselves with past episodes. Newcomers like me may have no idea what to expect. August 2005: ‘Once you’ve been doing it for a while, it’s not easy to stop being a low life. There’s nothing people enjoy more than watching someone going to hell on a poker, and they rather resent it if that person suddenly decides he wants to get off. No one objects in principle to an idle, self-centred, addicted life, as long as it ends prematurely in lonely and squalid circumstances and everyone can read about it in the papers. Renege on the deal, like a footballer in mid-contract, and people feel cheated.’ On drugs

Rita Lee

Clarke’s cancer had spread to his abdominal lymph nodes. That metastasis required more aggressive treatment than the “active surveillance” American doctors often recommend for early stage prostate cancer. Although based in France he kept closely in touch with his family in Britain, especially his grandsons on whom he doted. His spirits rose when he met up with them either in France or in Britain.

Eight years ago the British journalist Jeremy Clarke learned that he had metastatic prostate cancer. There are echoes in the text from the author's personal experience – at least the official version of it that we're given. He is well-educated, has travelled and (presumably) has a son by a relationship that didn't sustain. I don't doubt that he draws on real life for his columns. I just can't help feeling that he has to draw a lot further than Bernard did. June 4, 2022: ‘I’ve often wondered whether Her Majesty the Queen glances through The Spectator from time to time. And if she does, I wonder whether her kindly eye lights on this column. And if it does, I wonder what she thinks of what she reads there.March 29, 2008: “Do you smoke? Only when I’m drunk, I said. You get drunk? Of course I get drunk, I said — I’m a journalist. It’s expected of us. I see, she said, again finding the explanation perfectly satisfactory. As long as you don’t smoke inside the cottage, she said.” Hotels