Convention dictates that one should never speak ill of the dead, but imagine telling that to my former friend Rod Liddle – the most aggressively unconventional journalist of our times, scourge of the PC crowd (and sometimes of his own colleagues) and the most brilliant journalist I have ever met.
In a broad generalisation, BBC producers on Today tend to fall into two categories: those who remember who won the Boringwood by-election in 1943, and the swashbuckling imagineers who insist it’s the perfect day for a feature examining whether people are wearing hats. Rod had both skill-sets in abundance. He was the cleverest, most knowledgeable and most inventive at the same time.
Sometimes working with Rod felt like living in Scoop. I remember sitting at home late one Friday afternoon on a day off when I took a call that went something like this:
Rod: Rog, mate, I need you to go to Morocco.
Roger: What?
