When I filed my first Spectator piece the Aussie edition was still a twinkle in the eye of the then proprietor, Conrad Black. This being the long-lunching noughties, I have no idea what I wrote about, but I do recall being appalled at how little I was paid (plus ça  change) and how disappointed I was to learn that my piece would appear not in the magazine itself, but as part of its earliest online foray, the contents and editing of which – since this interweb thing was clearly a fad – had been delegated to a callow but already...