This morning I indulged myself cruising through the Saturday Telegraph and there in the 'Books' section I came across an article by Christopher Howse bringing tidings of great joy. Apparently, on January 24th a book will be released entitled: A Scribbler in Soho: A Celebration of Auberon Waugh. He, as regular readers will have inferred over the years, was and still is my favourite commentator of all time. His wit could almost be classified as 'a deadly weapon' and as Howse reminds us, many of Waugh's writings would not be published today. Here is one example from way back:
Take the case of Nora Beloff who crops up in a new book, A Scribbler in Soho. This “celebration of Auberon Waugh” gives a version of his working life between extracts from his journalism in Private Eye and The Literary Review, which Waugh edited for 14 years under the proprietorship of Naim Attallah, whose idea the book was. In 1972 in Private Eye Waugh wrote that “Nora Ballsoff”, the veteran political correspondent of The Observer, whose age he gave as 78 (she was 53), “was frequently to be seen in bed with Harold Wilson and senior members of the previous administration, although it is thought that nothing improper occurred”.
Needless to say, she sued and won but, oddly enough, that was the only time he was ever sued. Another of his targets was the late and unlamented Jeremy Thorpe:
The humour could go several steps beyond satire, as in his “hounding”, as he called it, of Jeremy Thorpe. Waugh stood against Thorpe in the 1979 election as a candidate for the Dog Lovers’ Party in order to draw attention to the bungled attempt to murder Norman Scott, whose Great Dane, Rinka, had been shot dead instead. Thorpe was defeated, though not by Waugh who got only 79 votes.
Again, as regular readers will know, I take every opportunity to remind people of his exceedingly wise words when he advised anyone who saw a politician on a soapbox to shout out, "Show us your willy!" That still makes me giggle. Anyway, buy the book when it comes out, there's plenty of Winter left and you may need the laughs!
I'm guessing Nora sued Waugh for the unflattering statement of her 'age'?
Posted by: Whitewall | Saturday, 12 January 2019 at 14:32