When I read out that final paragraph to her just now, however, she says: ‘Early doors yet, as they used to say.’” January 2011:‘Bed was fine. No complaints there. Well, there was one thing, actually. My kissing technique was rubbish. “No tongues!” she’d exclaim crossly, even when she was tied up.’ (Credit: Carmen Fyfe) On cancer

When I read out that final paragraph to her just now, however, she says:“Early doors yet, as they used to say.”’ But, meanwhile, he was diagnosed in 2013 with prostate cancer and introduced to “the Elizabethan drama of the oncologist’s consulting room – always a door opening and someone coming in bearing grave news”. The habitual joie de vivre of Low Life was thereafter tempered by frequent medical bulletins, sometimes signalling remission, more often something worse ahead. He is survived by Catriona, his son Mark, grandsons Oscar and Klynton, to whom he was especially devoted, and three stepdaughters from Catriona’s first marriage.June 2022: ‘I’ve often wondered whether Her Majesty the Queen glances through The Spectatorfrom time to time. And if she does, I wonder whether her kindly eye lights on this column. And if it does, I wonder what she thinks of what she reads there. June 4, 2022: ‘I’ve often wondered whether Her Majesty the Queen glances through The Spectator from time to time. And if she does, I wonder whether her kindly eye lights on this column. And if it does, I wonder what she thinks of what she reads there. August 20, 2005: “Once you’ve been doing it for a while, it’s not easy to stop being a low life. There’s nothing people enjoy more than watching someone going to hell on a poker, and they rather resent it if that person suddenly decides he wants to get off. No one objects in principle to an idle, self-centered, addicted life, as long as it ends prematurely in lonely and squalid circumstances and everyone can read about it in the papers. Renege on the deal, like a footballer in mid-contract, and people feel cheated.” Jeremy, with his fellow columnist, Taki, in 2015 Drugs

May 2023: ‘When Marketa leaves, Treena supervises the cleaning of my gob. On the bed table she lays out a hand towel, a tooth mug with warm water in it, a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste and three paper towels to spit into. She also places upon the table an anti-fungal mouthwash. Mouth fungus, apparently, is an inevitable side result of these cancer treatments. Unfortunately, by kissing her too frequently and too passionately, and vice versa, I have passed mine on to Catriona. Am I just too PC to get the jokes? No. I'll allow any taboo to be broken if the observation is honest enough to be funny – and the best humour is always deeply rooted in honesty. Perhaps the fact that I didn't believe in the characters is why most of it didn't really work for me. I read this review with utter disbelief having been a fan of Jeremy Clarke’s Low Life column for some years. Unlike this review Jeremy Clarke’s columns are beautifully constructed, keenly observed in that unfettered way The Spectator does so well, utterly hilarious, intelligent and a joy to read. Many weeks they come about as close to perfection as an 800 word piece of this type can. The funniest I read and I’ve only been reading them for a few years - isn’t in the book which, from Lesley Mason’s point of view is just as well. It would probably send her into a dead faint of left-wing, feminist indignation. This morning I woke early paralysed with worse pain than ever and I said to Catriona that we couldn’t go on like this. So she trotted down early to discuss my future with Dr Biscarat. My future is this. I will be cared for at home until I die. France will supply nurses capable of hospital-level care. If the pain continues to overcome the oral morphine, I will be fitted with this fabled morphine ‘syringe driver’, which can be turned up to 11 and put an end to it whenever I like. Splendid. July 30, 2022: “And I think: is this how it ends? Lying in bed watching TikTok videos? At the weekend I had planned a retreat in a nunnery. Three days of silent prayer and contemplation. But two of the nuns have caught Covid and the technical nun thought it best that we postponed. And at the weekend the tumor pain in my armpit, shoulder and shoulder blade intensified alarmingly. For the first time, the usual dose of the usual painkillers didn’t touch it. An escalation. I have always imagined that when it was time for me to die I would make a serious effort to prepare myself. And now that the warning light is flashing, what do I do? I tap the TikTok app and there’s Bernard Manning saying, ‘A man walks into a pub with a crocodile under his arm.’ Shoot me.” Spectator readersSo why am I? Mainly because life can be stressful and sometimes I want to read something light and frivolous and funny. The magic colouring book feel of the cover with its scattered sketches of an isolated house, fag-smoking car crashed into a lamp-post, open bottle and spilled glass of vino suggested this was about as frivolous as it gets. It also promised some humour. He passed only two O-levels, however, and his next phase of development was neatly summarised on the flyleaf of a Low Life anthology published in 2011:

July 2022: ‘And I think: is this how it ends? Lying in bed watching TikTok videos? At the weekend I had planned a retreat in a nunnery. Three days of silent prayer and contemplation. But two of the nuns have caught Covid and the technical nun thought it best that we postponed. And at the weekend the tumour pain in my armpit, shoulder and shoulder blade intensified alarmingly. For the first time, the usual dose of the usual painkillers didn’t touch it. An escalation. I have always imagined that when it was time for me to die,I would make a serious effort to prepare myself. And now that the warning light is flashing, what do I do? I tap the TikTok app and there’s Bernard Manning saying,“A man walks into a pub with a crocodile under his arm.”Shoot me.’ On Spectator readers My hangover was what the great Kingsley Amis describes in his Everyday Drinkingguide as a ‘metaphysical’ hangover Pamplona March 29, 2008: “Do you smoke? Only when I’m drunk, I said. You get drunk? Of course I get drunk, I said — I’m a journalist. It’s expected of us. I see, she said, again finding the explanation perfectly satisfactory. As long as you don’t smoke inside the cottage, she said.” Hotels If I’m honest with myself I’ve never completely known or understood what I was doing, or supposed to be doing, every week when writing this column AcidApril 2020:‘She reached down and slid open the bottom drawer of her desk, showing about 100 vodka miniatures. I nodded complicity. She emptied four into two plastic water cups. “Have you got anything to go withit?” I said, which wasn’t very Low Life-like of me. She reached down and pulled out the lower drawer of her neighbour’s desk and rummaged in it, emerging eventually with a medicine bottle of kaolin and morphine.’ Communists and fascists Jeremy’s self-effacement was almost as endearing as his infectious laughter. He was genuinely surprised by the high esteem in which his readers held him and I’m sure this helped him in his battle against his painful illness. Fans of the column – he's described as a cult columnist so there must be some such – will no doubt welcome the chance to reacquaint themselves with past episodes. Newcomers like me may have no idea what to expect.

There are echoes in the text from the author's personal experience – at least the official version of it that we're given. He is well-educated, has travelled and (presumably) has a son by a relationship that didn't sustain. I don't doubt that he draws on real life for his columns. I just can't help feeling that he has to draw a lot further than Bernard did. August 2005: ‘Once you’ve been doing it for a while, it’s not easy to stop being a low life. There’s nothing people enjoy more than watching someone going to hell on a poker, and they rather resent it if that person suddenly decides he wants to get off. No one objects in principle to an idle, self-centred, addicted life, as long as it ends prematurely in lonely and squalid circumstances and everyone can read about it in the papers. Renege on the deal, like a footballer in mid-contract, and people feel cheated.’ On drugs July 2021: ‘I sat between Philippe and the detached French woman. She was quite old. She hadn’t yet got over the death of her lover, she told me, even though she’d passed away a decade before. After telling me this she rested her head against my chest as though exhausted by grief. Offered wine, she sprang to life and filled her glass dangerously close to the brim with red.Eight years ago the British journalist Jeremy Clarke learned that he had metastatic prostate cancer. The naturalness of Clarke’s writing belied the sweat he put into it, often spending two whole days on an 800-word column and still worrying that he had failed to find a resonant last phrase. But the ending he achieved in a broader sense – recording until he could write no more the agony of advancing tumours, the kindness of nurses and neighbours, the solace of books, birdsong and morphine, and the loving care of Catriona, the partner he married at the last – was high art indeed, followed with admiration and rising dread by a legion of readers. In those years Clarke lived between Devon and the Provençal village of Cotignac, to where Catriona had decamped, to a house built into a cliff, following her separation. But after his mother’s death in 2019 Clarke moved permanently to France, offering British readers a revealing account of the opulence of French state health provision. Jeremy Clarke, who chronicled his experiences of living a “low life” in the Spectator magazine for more than 20 years. We have a tribute from Eric Idle.