Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

My phone call with God

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issue 23 April 2022

Got slightly wrecked over the bank holiday weekend and had hoped to kind of glide through the early part of the week without too much requirement for that bane of the columnist, research – looking stuff up, talking to people, etc. But I crawled downstairs on Tuesday, switched on the laptop and there was a message bearing the address s.fidelis@almighty.com: ‘Hey Rod, I might have something for you. Give me a call x.’

I hadn’t heard from Semp for three or four years, when he was a canny and ambitious junior press officer, helpful, disinclined to panic, never obsequious. Slightly grating Cardiff accent but other than that, a good sort. Now it seemed he was actually ‘Director of Communications’. For God. Now, if you’re going to be in PR, that’s the job to have, no? I rang the number and after the usual how-you-keeping stuff he got to the point.

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