Lost innocence

It comes as something of a shock to realise that I have known Liz Anderson, this magazine’s admirable arts editor, for almost 20 years. We first met in 1987, as junior sub-editors on the Telegraph’s arts pages, and sat trembling in shock and awe together as the arts page supremo, Miriam Gross, and her deputy, Marsha Dunstan, conducted furious rows over the page lay-out. It was the best spectator sport in town, but attended by the constant risk that some of the fire and ire crackling across the desk might suddenly be deflected our way. We kept our heads down.

Liz and I have kept in touch ever since, along with another much-loved refugee from the Telegraph’s arts pages, Kate Chisholm, and reunite for lunches that are hugely enjoyable and not nearly as frequent as I would wish. But there is something I have never dared say to Liz’s face. I’m just a tiny bit scared of her, too. Not as scared as I was of Miriam and Marsha, but, in spite of her delightful good humour, Liz sometimes makes me feel like a grubby schoolboy in her presence. She is, in short, a proper grown-up — a condition to which I have long aspired but never quite attained.

So it was with considerable nervousness that I filed last month’s ‘Olden but golden’ column. It was entirely devoted to the putative size of Mick Jagger’s penis, following some outrageous remarks on the subject from his old mucker Keith Richards. It was one of those pieces I regretted as soon as I had hit the send button. With the whole of pop music at my disposal, was this fourth-form smut the best I could manage?