The following column was written in 2024 for former Spectator editor Fraser Nelson when he left the magazine. This is the first time it has been published.
My favourite ever email came from a friend and fellow hack, Roland White. It said: ‘You bastard. I had a 50 quid bet that Charles Moore would be the first Spectator writer to use the word “clunge” in an article.’ Ha. I admit I had been surprised to see the word there, in hard copy, when the mag was published. I had expected the usual haggling. ‘Can’t you say vagina, Rod? Or just leave it out altogether? Or how about Lady Garden?’ And in childish petulance, almost howling, I would aver no, it absolutely must be clunge, only clunge will do, because it speaks of a rogue and earthy demotic, which in a very real sense is the antithesis of what I am elsewhere suggesting and is therefore funny. So it must be clunge – or at the very least, minge, or if even that offends, splattered clam.
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