Columnists have been with us since Addison and Steele, and our newspapers are enlivened by opinionated pundits and diarists. But the genre has become absurdly inflated. On Sundays, old ladies staggering homewards from the newsagents must wonder whether their frail frames can support the quantity of their wordage.
Some columnists achieve immortality-John Junor and Bernard Levin clank with long service medals-but others change with bewildering rapidity. After some months of Julie Burchill's diatribes in the Sunday Times, she vanished, to be replaced by Lesley White. It is only a matter of time before the curtain comes down on her act and another young woman is summoned to give us her views on-well, anything.
Columnists fit into ten categories:
l The solipsists, who invite us to share the minutiae of their daily lives. Zo? Heller, who used to compose interesting features, is now confined to the Sunday Times magazine, where we learn each week about her companionable brunches, new tee-shirts and other excitements in New York and California. AA Gill used to have a column of his own in the Sunday Times, but now writes expansively on restaurants and television. Iconoclasm is his hallmark (hates the Welsh, hates Jane Austen) and his unpredictability has become predictable. Bernard Levin has transformed his Times column into autobiography. Devoted readers know all about his eating habits and musical tastes. His prose is occasionally inspired, more usually unreadable, but he retains the capacity to surprise. A cute double act comes from John Diamond in The Times magazine and Nigella Lawson all over the place. They write about each other or their joint child, but refrain from identifying their celebrity spouse. Tension must arise in their household every time the toaster jams, providing a riot of material for their respective but non-collusive columns.
l The women's institute, a genre pioneered by the Observer. In the days before Chubb locks, your next-door neighbour would wander in to borrow a tea bag and stay for a lengthy chat. Today the Observer performs that role. Katharine Whitehorn (benign earnestness) started it all. Sue Arnold joined in.
l The hysterical golden agers. Instantly recognisable by their unvarying tone of indignation, the writings of Woodrow Wyatt, Paul Johnson and John Junor express the view that we live in a state of constant apocalypse. Junor can be a delight: constantly lavishing stolid praise on complete prats, or declaring something preposterous to be self-evident. Christopher Booker of the Sunday Telegraph, obsessed by the EU, is waiting in the wings.
l The sweet old dears are the benign counterparts of the latter group. Godfrey Smith is the granpappy of them all, wittering on about cricket and tingle factors after all these years. Kenneth Rose, of the Sunday Telegraph, has a sharper pen.
l Pensioners' corner. Former edi-tors no longer retire to their rockeries, but linger on as columnists. William Deedes still plies his sweet, sly pen in the Telegraph. The Times offers space to William Rees-Mogg, with his special gift for somnolent wrong-headedness, and Simon Jenkins, who, amazingly, is always worth reading. Andrew Neil, who gave up the editorship of the Sunday Times for the obscurity of the airwaves, is also allowed back.
l The rib-ticklers. "The World of Wallace Arnold," with its single joke now protracted into its fourth year, is relentlessly unfunny. The joke is supposed to be that Craig Brown's creation is always thickly involved in the issues of the day-from royal divorces to Joan Collins' authorial difficulties. Auberon Waugh used a similar device, sparingly and thus successfully. The Independent on Sunday evidently adores this kind of hearty whimsy. Captain Moonlight, peppered with exclamations, winks and nudges, is even more impenetrable. I suppose Oliver Pritchett of the Sunday Telegraph is a rib-tickler-at least somebody must find him amusing.
l The young codgers. Youngsters should be dissuaded from aping their grandparents. Minette Marrin of the Sunday Telegraph is a prime offender, emitting quaintly right wing views with the utmost solemnity. (She is, incidentally, much more attractive than the photograph of a mad-eyed sourpuss above her byline suggests.) Andrew Roberts is a new recruit to the fold.
l The dear diarists. In the old days, the diarist used the events of the week as a pretext for sage observations. Now the diarist really seems to believe that we want to know what he (or usually she) did last week. A diary needs to be continuous and accumulative to be effective. It rarely is.
l The Westminster hit squad. At last, unrestrained pleasure, provided by the likes of Matthew Parris, Alan Watkins, and Simon Hoggart.
l Style queens. These are youngsters, queuing for the women's institute. They write about things I know nothing about (fashion, Blur, hangovers), so I cannot judge their merits. Suzi Feay (Independent on Sunday) and Anna Blundy (The Times magazine) are typical.
A good columnist needs wit (Auberon Waugh, Richard Littlejohn, Alexander Chancellor) or a passionate intelligence (Simon Jenkins, Neal Ascherson). Being opinionated is, alas, a necessary but not sufficient condition for the job.
