Tamzin Lightwater

Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody

I stirred myself to write a Letter to The Spectator.

"Sir:

I'd been meaning to ask if anyone else finds Deborah Ross's verbal tics and pyrotechnics just a little too self-referential for her Cinema column to be of actual use in choosing or understanding the films she writes about.

Then someone wrote to praise her and my resolve collapsed under the usual lack of confidence in my own opinion.

But I haven't seen anyone toss a bouquet to the witty Tamzin Lightwater and this worries me for the continuing health of her agile and clever 'Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody'.

No one around me seems to understand the column, but nor do they 'get' Doonesbury or Dilbert. This feeds my paranoia that Ms Lightwater's Speccie masters fall into the same category and will use the dearth of letters of support as ammo to give this zeitgeist-savvy lady the heave-ho.

I plead that she is not let go gentle into those Wibberley woods."

Dept of Can't Be the Only One: See also Seamus' gloriously pompous Speccie spank on Iain Dale's Diary.