Rod Liddle got me into journalism. We always had The Spectator lying around the house when I was young. I soon learned to turn to him first, as most good readers of the magazine do.
My father and I would often read his columns aloud to each other and laugh ourselves into fits. That was Rod’s sublime talent: he made people LOL, long before the internet did.
My first job was at the Catholic Herald, and my then-boss Damian Thompson advised me to improve my writing by copying out the articles of my favorite columnist. I chose Rod, obviously, though of course I could never dream of imitating his style or imaginative wit. I particularly enjoyed his fascination with “the nematode worm which stabs itself to death with its own penis.”
In my first week at The Spectator, I felt daunted when Mary Wakefield, the then-deputy editor, asked me to call Rod, my hero, in order to ask what he was going to write about. I dialed his landline from the office phone. “What d’ya want motherfucker?” he answered, sans hello. I couldn’t have loved him more.
A while later, I remember bumping into Rod coming out of confession in Westminster Cathedral. He was with a cameraman filming one of his “Rod’s got issues” videos for the Times (here’s my favorite of those). “What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked. Confession, I said. “That must have taken ages,” he said. Rod actually had quite a strong Christian sense, though it’s fair to say that piety was not for him. Christmas and Easter mattered to him. So did football and Millwall FC.
He often teased me for supporting Queens Park Rangers Football Club. My WhatsApp messages with Rod have been auto-deleting, annoyingly, but my last existing text from him reads: “Still got you lot to play… Happy Easter.” Millwall very nearly went up to the Premier League last season. I think I sent him a faintly gloating message when they lost in the play-off semi-finals. I hope next year for him they are promoted.
When we launched The Spectator in print in the US, I asked Rod to do our first cover piece urging America to take back Meghan Markle. Please read what he produced here. It is, like all his articles, dazzlingly funny and brilliant.
RIP, motherfucker. We’ll miss you a lot.
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