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I was sorry to hear of Miles Kington's death, at the age of 66. Kington was, amongst other things, a columnist for the Independent, and it was for this column for which I knew him. His columns were very funny and, quite amazingly, daily — his columns were the one thing I missed when I stopped reading the Indie.

Some of Kington's writing can be found here. Here's a snippet:

Lord Wyatt has, apparently, inserted a clause into the Broadcasting Bill that will ensure that future factually based television programmes are balanced. In other words, any opinion expressed therein will have to be countered by the opposite opinion, and equal space given for the opposite opinion. Setting aside the interesting notion that as soon as the Gulf war finally erupts, British news programmes will have to give half their air time to the Iraqi viewpoint, this raises the equally interesting notion that Lord Wyatt may be off his trolley.

A supporter of Lord Wyatt writes: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to put the opposite view concerning Lord Wyatt. I have known this man for many years, and you must not be deceived by the impossibly plummy voice and the ineffably wafted cigar, nor indeed by the frequent comment that he is somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan. He has a mind as sharp as a scalpel, and if he thinks programmes need balance, there is probably a damned good reason for it.

Dear Mr Kington, In the interests of balance, it must be pointed out that the phrase "off his trolley'', as used above, may or may not be justified with reference to Lord Wyatt, but certainly causes a great deal of distress to the trolley industry. For far too long we in the trolley industry, or at least we in the PR firm serving the trolley industry, have striven to counteract the insidious....

A message from Saddam Hussein. Greetings to the British people, and to Sheikh Wyatt. I am sad to note that I spotted a reference to the inevitability of the Gulf war. How can this be? What war? Who is fighting? All I have done is reclaim the so- called state of Kuwait as the part of Iraq it has always been, taken the best bits, and sold the rest for scrap. Thank you for letting me have the right to reply, a concept which, I must confess, was new to me.

Tags — General Interest