One of the great perks of working in television is that every now and again you get to meet somebody you've really always wanted to hang out with. This happened to me a couple of years back when I found myself in a London hotel room interviewing Christopher Hitchens about modernist literature and the merits of Saul Bellow and Martin Amis. Bear in mind that it was just gone 10 am and Hitchens had already offered me (as a gift) the half open bottle of Retsina sitting in a plastic ice bucket from the night before.
Though I don't agree with everything Hitchens writes, I tend to agree with about 75% of it. The other 25% is usually so brilliantly argued and articulated that it at least provokes thought rather than outrage - so all in all not a bad strike rate.
The interview began. He was dry, and sharp and totally engaging. The he asked if I'd like a Scotch. I declined, but he poured himself a giant tumbler of the stuff and as he drank it he became sharper, more engaging, and quite brilliant. I can truly say it was one of the most enjoyable interviews I've ever conducted. He was courteous, gentlemanly and fabulously off-the-record rude about a number of people. The only down side to the whole episode was that he had to catch a plane and therefore apologised that he couldn't buy us lunch, as he really wanted to carry on talking, and that out of pure courtesy I later had a Scotch with him and wrote off most of the rest of the working day as a result.
The purpose of this tale is to draw attention to today's Independent newspaper, wherein Hitchens is drop-dead hysterically pithy on the whole George Galloway/US Senate affair. At a press conference the other day Galloway refused to answer Hitchens' questions by haranguing him for being an alcoholic and a "Trotskyist popinjay". Galloway is without doubt a boorish, bullying arrogant son of a bitch as redolent of spin and doublespeak as the very New Labour politicians he tries to 'oppose'. Hitchens is not one to take things lying down, so he describes Galloway as "a thug and demagogue ... a very cheap character and a short arse ... puffed up like a turkey." So much name-calling would be the stuff of playground tittle-tattle were it not for one crucial thing: Galloway's refusal to even address Hitchens' questions about the Charity Commission, the oil issue and the very nature of his relationship with Saddam Hussein.
Hitchens was the subject of much oppobrium when he came out with his pro-War stance, and aggree with it or not as we are free to do, we should applaud his hatred of scandal, duplicity and all-out bullshit. A list of pieces by him seems to be collected here. The Independent doesn't allow the article to be read free online but I've pretty much summed it up anyway. And about Saul Bellow's Augie March, Martin Amis's Money and Joyce's Ulysses, what can I say - he was spot on perfect on the lot of them. Christopher Hitchens I salute you.