Middlesbrough

No one looking back on the last fortnight could say that Middlesbrough didn’t make the most of its time in the spotlight. I’ve been in the north-east these past few weeks and opening the local papers has been like a diabolical advent calendar: a new horror for every day. On Saturday 22 August we discovered that five Middlesbrough boys, aged 17 to 23, with 22 convictions between them, had raced the wrong way down the A66 and smashed into a police car, killing themselves and the two poor officers too. On the Sunday we learnt that the speeding boys had been chasing another car, a Volvo, which, in the early hours of Saturday had reversed repeatedly into the front of one of the boys’ houses.

I met Rod 22 years ago this month. We had been selected as teammates on a gameshow pilot, and, halfway through the morning’s filming, we went for a fag break. He said to me: “This is crap, shall we go to the pub?” We scarpered and spent the rest of the day in a Covent Garden pub, working our way through the drinks list and chatting away like chipmunks. I’d never been starstruck by anyone before I met Rod. However famous or talented actors are, their job is to say stuff written by other people. Rod, however, was a legend to me. I began reading his Guardian columns at university. Though I was studying all the greats of English literature, it was Rod’s writing which felt like a ribbon-wrapped gift, a treat, a joy.