Waterhouse boozing starts at 11am

Grizzled old poppet Keith Waterhouse recently described bloggers as "nerds, anoraks and braces-wearers of the worst sort". Let it be said that Madame Arcati is not without a sense of humour. Generously she smiled at this well-turned bit of Ludditism. Waterhouse is himself a earlier model of the blogger - a plogger (paper logger)

In a rather good interview with him in the Independent's Media Weekly today, I enjoy this detail: he swigs white wine from 11am each day as he pounds together his 1000-word columns on an old Adler typewriter for the Daily Mail. He then gets himself creatively sozzled at long lunches. Quite what he does from late afternoon to bedtime is not told, but mid-evening I frequently spot him near Earl's Court Tube strolling from some pub with a lady approximately of his age (he's nearly 78) attached to his arm. They usually manage to complete the crossing of a road per two reds of the traffic lights, slow-dancing around hooting cars trying to make a quick getaway.

I understand he went AWOL last year after a little spill following a marathon six-hour lunch with Mail colleagues.

All this and more qualifies him to write The Last Page, a play he's working on about the last days of Fleet Street. He's not certain himself what it's about but I think it maybe an elegy for geographical Fleet Street rather than for print journalism.

The only Fleet Street bar I ever visited was nicknamed the Stab In The Back. This I think would be a more interesting title for his play.