25 June 2025

The right note to end on

In my columns for the New Statesman, I’ve recorded more than a decade of my life. But now it’s time to say goodbye.

It’s 5.30am and I’m woken up by what sounds like someone banging two metal dustbin lids together. After ten minutes of this almighty din, it strikes me that either one of our neighbours has gone mad or something else is happening. Looking out of the bedroom window I see that in fact a couple of huge black crows are attacking the piece of modernist art in next door’s front garden.

The sculpture is a kind of star shape, chrome and shiny, violently reflective. The sun ricochets off it like a blade. It is brash and ugly and I have always hated it. I don’t know whether the crows love it or hate it, or are just drawn to its shininess, like the magpies in the nursery rhyme. Or perhaps they see their own reflection in its surface and imagine it to be another crow, an enemy that needs dispatching.

Either way, they are pecking at it, hard and viciously, their beaks resounding off the metal with a loud CLANG. The exact sound of someone banging two metal dustbin lids together. Every few minutes they fly off, cackling with laughter, then land again and the whole process repeats. Pretty soon I hate the crows and the sculpture even more than I did before.

And why am I telling you this, you may wonder? Well it’s because I have often used this space as a kind of diary, recording the mundane or unusual events of my week, and this week the crows have loomed large. But there is a random, unexpected quality to the whole episode which has slightly thrown me.

I keep thinking of that brilliant Martin Amis quote, about the difference between reality and fiction, the way that reality is so much harder to control. He said: “The trouble with life… is its amorphousness, its ridiculous fluidity. Look at it: thinly plotted, largely themeless, sentimental and ineluctably trite. The dialogue is poor, or at least violently uneven. The twists are either predictable or sensationalist. And it’s always the same beginning; and the same ending.”

He was comparing life as it is lived to life as it is presented in novels – but the same holds true for writing columns. I try to give my diary-like entries some shape or structure or theme. But life is so messy that our attempts to impose order and meaning sometimes feel unwieldy. And the reason I’m struggling with the tone and subject matter of this particular column is because it’s my last one. I am at the end of my time at the New Statesman, and I’m wrestling with how to strike the right note on which to finish.

I’ve always been thrilled to write for the magazine, and not least because of the rich heritage which includes writers like Amis. (As an aside, I once sent Amis a fan letter, informing him that he was the subject of a long essay I wrote for my MA, and he very kindly sent back some encouraging words. I still have the postcard.)

I’ve recorded more than ten years of my life here – children growing up and leaving home, sickness and health, holidays and lockdowns. In between all that I’ve shared thoughts on books, films and music, never once being told what to write about, or having an idea rejected. For that, I’m extremely grateful and I acknowledge my good fortune.

But I’m stopping now, partly because I am busy again with music, and partly because I am running out of ideas, or ways to turn ideas into pieces that feel fresh. Perhaps, after a while, a columnist does tend to keep using the same ending. I often finish neatly, with a wry smile, or a kind of soft landing. Not a great one for grand flourishes, I sing without much vibrato, and maybe that comes from the same instinct. Don’t overdo it, let the words speak for themselves.

So. This is the end, and it’s been great. Thanks to all of you for reading what I’ve written, and to all the lovely editors who have helped me over the years. And if you’re wondering why I’ve ended with a random story about some crows, don’t worry, so am I.