Simon Hoggart was for a long time parliamentary sketchwriter at the Guardian. He briefly got himself into a muddle over a woman who David Blunkett simultaneously got himself into a muddle over. Possibly Blunkett could plead his inability to see as an extenuating circumstance but really the two of them were just middle-aged men being made fools of by Eros. Not a lonely predicament, poor dears.
The more important thing about Hoggart is that he was brilliantly funny. I miss his wit, and am slowly going through everything he wrote that is available at the Guardian website. His pieces are pretty much the only things I read there. Here is the one that I have just got to and, although it is over 20 years old, I must have laughed six or seven times while reading it. Hail Hoggart, I say.
Sadly, when I reached the end of the article, I was greeted with a message from today's Guardian management, congratulating me for "being one of our top readers globally" (apparently I have read 95 articles on their website in the last 12 months, so, if I am one of their top readers globally, I doubt they are going to last very much longer, frankly). They go on to thank me "for turning to the Guardian on so many occasions" and they talk about how "fiercely independent" they are committed to remaining.
What they want of course is money. And I want to explain to them that I would definitely give them money, if they continued to sponsor the quality of writing that Hoggart produced so regularly and, more importantly, if they remained committed to humour. As it is I am not prepared to pay them to read things that were produced and paid for over 20 years ago, however much those things do continue to make me laugh.
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