The two worst words in the English language ?

If you work in an environment where the sick and dying are never far you are naturally reminded of your own mortality. However I like many readers of this blog I am intrigued and fascinated by decades gone; I’m a Historian. I’d like to think of myself as having one foot in the past rather than one foot in the grave.  It is curious however, that in an age of ever increasing life spans and good health we seem less equipped to deal with the passing of time and our mortality or more to the point living the life we have fully. I’ve been struck in the last couple of months about how cautious and guarded people are: with their time, their affections and their passions. Those who are older seem constrained by what has happened to them already, often rather than learning from the past they are living by it and seem constrained and over analytical. 

More curious however is the conservatism of the young, is it a generational thing this strong sense of caution? Perhaps the post-Thatcher generations, technology savvy and entitled have been hit harder by the recession and the removal of things the baby-boomers (I’m not one) saw as ‘rights’.  It cannot be because I become from a particularly privileged group generationally (1980’s working class Britain was quite grim) that it appears that we were and remain somewhat livelier. I did always think that recession resulted in a greater appreciation of the things that matter in life: love, friends and living. Is technology to blame? After all enough money for a half pint of strongbow in a pub, an evening of leaping around in a darkened room with a noisy band or tearing around London causing mayhem were all you could do to alleviate boredom in the 80’s. No computers, no internet, no Nintendo WII. The best freely available entertaining activity generally simply required another reasonably attractive human being who was ‘up for it’. No accident that we were all fairly slim too..

Now many life decisions appear to be sadly reliant on one of the worst words in the dictionary: ‘caution’. I’m not complaining about common sense but caution- that mealy-mouthed Daily Mail of a word. The word that stops people from trying things, jumping in feet first, asking people out, having fun, staying up late, taking a punt, having a fling, placing a bet. Caution results from being scared, nervous, underestimating yourself and others and every time it wins it results, to my mind, in a small death. 

I don’t mean you should do things you don’t want to, or dangerous things or that you have to be some insane loud lunatic throwing dice in the air although that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The phrase: ‘throwing caution to the wind’ has a meaning of liberation and freedom  for a good reason. Caution is not ‘taking care’, rather it is not caring; a flattening of experience. So we end up with corporate clothing, corporate lives, dull lives. I’m not known as a cheerful soul myself but I have made the trade-off between hard work and wealth in favour of useful work and enough to pay my way. Enough to spend a good weekend (just gone) at Rhythm Riot, the rockabilly weekender with hundreds of people who were together and determined to enjoy themselves. Every single risky decision I have made has done me no actual harm, caused no regrets and more often than not enriched the life I have managed to have so far.

In the happy bus at Rhythm Riot (picture courtesy of Bex Shaw).

Enjoyment and pleasure in others, the world, your surroundings is an admirable aim not an irresponsible one. If you can help others to feel the same even better if this can be done without causing problems or at cost to others. Because if one truism really is a truism it is that life is very, very very short.  

NB: the other word I dislike is ‘Stilton’

All Tomorrow's (and yesterday's and today's) Parties.

It is only appropriate now that Halloween has just passed us by like a phantom in the hallway and the festive season fast approaches that I find myself having read two very different books on the subject of parties: Suzette Field’s ‘A Curious Invitation: The Forty Greatest Parties in Literature’ and Angel Adoree’s ‘The Vintage Tea Party Year’. One is concerned with the literary form the other with the literal..

A Curious Invitation

 

In literature the party can indeed be a curious thing. As a device it is extremely useful yet demonically difficult to write. Try it. The combination of ambience, multiple characters and narrative are a challenge. Most of us can rely on the anthropological mesh of convention to hang our own idea of what an event is upon: weddings, Christmas parties, bar mitzvahs. The party in literature is a crucial route in writing to bring characters together in a way that we can recognise and personally I find it far more convincing than the convention of accident. For me it is more natural that an Austen heroine should be made to wince at a Ball than be scooped up by a handsome stranger in a storm. Where would the traditional British crime novel be without the cocktail party, surely as essential to the genre as a locked room? We all, love them or loathe them, find ourselves in a party at some point in life and they provide a microcosm of all the loving and loathing and hating and joy life provides. 

It is therefore surprising that a book on this subject has not yet been written and fortunate that it has been written by someone so well qualified to do so.  I used to go to a lot of parties, events and balls before I was ill and it is how I am acquainted with the writer. She was and is involved in throwing parties, soirees and events that sometimes frankly defy description.  It may be that throwing a good party requires the same insights as the creation of an imaginary one and I feel that this reveals itself not only in the quality of the writing in this book but the choices the author makes. You may, like me, find there are some included that are surprising and others that are omitted. I was delighted to see The Masque of the Red Death Party from Poe's eponymous work, The Beverly Hills Party (Hollywood Wives, Jackie Collins) and Satan’s Rout (The Master and the Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov) included in the selection.  I would have added one of Anthony Powell’s or Ford Madox Ford’s parties myself, there are several memorable examples. But this is one of the points of the book, it makes you think about what you have read and how novelists write about the party. It would be a good read for a book club; another kind of party.

Suzette Field (photo Sin Bozkurt)

 

The party, the get-together, the piss-up.  These may be viewed as ephemeral, flippant and superficial to some degree in literature. Suzette Field’s book is a firm reminder that this is not in reality the case. Cinema gets this. Think of the wedding in The Godfather, or a film such as Greenaway’s The Cook The Thief His wife & Her Lover. Even Star Wars contains in its early scenes characters partying away in Chalmun’s Cantina.  

It does seem that we plan our parties today with less attention, less finesse. The excuse is ‘lack of time’, but this cannot be true. Do we have less leisure time than our grandparents? I look back at photographs of knees ups in the depressed twenties and wartime Britain. Decorations, special food, special clothing and special drinks. My favourite picture is of my great grandparents in early fifties austerity Britain wearing jaunty cowbow hats decorated for some reason with bells. Now we have more time, more money but we farm our events out to ‘planners’, buy in all our food and decorations, the latter often cheap and shiny.  The holding of an event is a chore rather than a pleasure and one of the most endangered social creatures at present seems to me to be the thrower of parties for the sake of it, the salon hostess, the master or mistress of ceremonies.

The Vintage Tea Party Year

The other book about parties I have read recently is Angel Adoree’s The Vintage Tea Party Year. Don’t be too taken in by the ‘vintage’ element of the title, this book is not another field guide to polka dots, cupcakes and penny black nostalgia. It contains recipes, but many are meaty, strongly flavoured, unusual and historic in origin and flavours. The book is quirkily and charmingly designed and suggests ideas for parties, not necessarily tea based. There is plenty of alcohol involved too. What is refreshing here is Angel’s mission to suggest that flamboyance, imagination and not too much effort should be put into holding things. I commend her suggestion that written invitations should be used (we all rely too much on the horror of the Facebook invitation) and that any kind of object can be brought in to make a party memorable. It is really not a case of spending money, showing off or making your life stressful. I can vouch for the recipes which are makeable, some are simplicity itself. This isn’t a prescriptive book, it is creative and inclusive, I particularly enjoyed the chapter which suggested that, shock, horror, the boys might want to play with tweed, alcohol, savoury food and male fripperies without a frilly petticoated girl-wife in sight. Despite the physical charm of the book there is something subversive here; don't buy it, don't do it the way the glossies tell you to do it, don't get new stuff, make it, grab stuff where you can if it suits....

Any one can make a cheese and pickle sandwich...

 

I think the books actually work quite well together, even though they are very different. I’d be delighted to receive both in a hamper with a bottle of champagne, a waitrose voucher and an exhortation to ‘have a ball’.  In these mealy-mouthed times of corporate boredom, mass-produced living and sheer ennui our contribution to ending the recession should be to spending our time making some investment in our social lives and trying to make life a little less mundane.

 'A Curious Invitation: The Forty Greatest Parties in Literature. Suzette Field (Picador 2012)

‘The Vintage Tea Party Year’ Angel Adoree (Mitchell Beazley 2012)

Both hardback, both available on Amazon.

Goodwood Revival 2012

It has been a while since I posted here, Summer raced by and what a nasty wet one it was. Now it is shocking to see the mince pies on the supermarket shelves and a pleasure to see the leaves change colour; Autumn is my favourite season.

The stand out event of the last month was for me the Goodwood Revival. I haven’t been before, I am not a ‘petrol head’ and have always been more drawn to the horseracing. This year however things came together, I was able to join the Chap Magazine Olympiad crowd who had been invited to display their sporting prowess at the event.  Additionally a kind friend was prepared to put me up in Lewes which is one of my favourite English towns. I knew it would be a good weekend when I arrived and a cosy drink in the Lewes Arms was followed by a delicious meal prepared by my friend’s parents.

Fleur de Guerre (photo), Bethan and myself on the flying chair thingy.

I knew that the Goodwood Revival was the ‘vintage’ inclined event and that Goodwood had dabbled with the scene by holding with Wayne Hemingway a Goodwood Vintage event a couple of years ago which had spawned various controversies. At the same time I was aware this was a serious three day weekend of motor racing, motorbike racing and aeroplane fly bys and displays.  I was not sure how I would find this, I don’t even drive. In fact I did actually have to stop one friend mid eulogy about some automobile engine and say ‘I am very sorry but I don’t have the faintest idea what you are talking about’. Basically for me a car is pretty, glamorous or suits my outfit. I care rather more about the person driving it and whether I can have a ride in it than any technical specifications. But I do have to say there were a great many very very pretty cars. There is also pleasure to be derived from being around enthusiasts having a great time in nearly all environments ( although some things, like dogging, or EDL demos are best avoided).

Gustav lighting the Olympic Pipe.

There was a great deal to keep the vintage/retro/history fiend busy. The roar of racing engines is a fine backdrop to pootling around in your finery, even better were the aeroplanes whizzing around the skies, wellington bombers, spitfires and on one evening a plane with a brightly lit propeller were constantly whizzing through the skies distracting you from the shopping, drinking, eating and automobile porn all around. 

My 40's housewife look.

Retro wise there was something for everyone.  There were various high points. I loved the jolly faux fight between mods and rockers outside the retro Tescos, just typing that makes me smile. The Dad’s Army re-enactors were fun, and whilst in forties civvy street clothing on the Sunday I found myself flanked by Lance Corporal Jones trying to give me some sausages and Private Joe Walker trying to sell me black market nylons. Shortly after this we had a very civilised cup of tea with Harry and Edna in their CC21 display area.  Nearby there were also live camels, party of a Lawrence of Arabia themed exhibit.  The Chap Olympiad fitted extremely well into all this, providing an extra dose of surreal nonsense and particularly delighting families, after all what child is not entertained by men in hats battering each other with umbrellas? We were ‘on’three times a day, the audience were happy to participate and groups of people came back to watch it again.  There was a diverse range of entertainment available, including Mr B the Gentleman Rhymer in the Speckled Hen Tent and Black Elvis in the Butlins tent. There was also dancing, lots to drink and eat and of course, the racing. 

Chap Olympiad participants.

This is an expensive event, but unlike some others I won’t be churlish enough to mention it was good value. The sheer number of vehicles, the racing, the vintage events, the shopping and the atmosphere were excellent. Lord March and his team seem to be pitching it very well to appeal to a wide range of visitors whilst, despite the crowds still maintaining an element of glamour.  I would love to obtain access to some of the ‘clubs’ and private pavilions but was very happy to meander around generally. The cold war theme adopted this year was applied with humour, I particularly liked the Sputnik satellite that had crashed by the entrance.  This event is great fun and I am looking forward to next year. I could even grow to like the smell of petrol and the roar of engines..

Legs eleven - tights in the summer.

Recently I have noticed a few comments wondering why on earth, in the heat, some women insist on wearing opaque or woolly tights and stockings, often with proper shoes, on hot sunny days? Some merely wonder, some are critical. I am however one of those women who stockings in the sunshine. And I have good reasons for doing so, some of which stem from living for several years in a country whose summers in terms of humidity and heat are never equalled here in London:

Summer legs!

Vanity. Legs unless long, slim and brown look a bit rubbish.  And toes are ugly. Pasty legs and knees and toes sticking out from shorts and cotton skirts are not my cup of tea. In fact I don’t think even beautiful bare legs ever look as good as they would in seams, just don’t like them. It’s a taste thing.

Comfort.  I find my feet blister easily in sandals and shoes in the heat if I do not wear socks or tights.

Hygiene. Without socks or tights you sweat directly into your sandals and shoes. I feel drier and less damp in opaques. I hate sticky skin and I don’t want London dirt over my feet. I found in Asia that like the locals being covered up was sometimes more effective than light clothing in keeping cool.

Health. Tights and socks keep the sun off and mosquitoes away. Also if I am doing anything active I want to be able to move around and I find sandals impractical, apart from the blisters they feel flimsy. And men do have a habit of standing on one’s feet in tube trains.

Aesthetics. The sun n’ surf, wear a kaftan, look like a festival goer or a sweet forties land girl in a field look is never, as anyone who knows me will testify, the way I am going to choose to look. I like hard edges, good heels and dark colours. These don't work with bare legs and painted toesies.

I’m not saying that this is the fact for everyone or that I hate the sun but just that when you see a girl in opaques wandering the city, like me it might be what is comfortable, cool and clean feeling for her not sheer eccentricity or stupidity. xx

Fine for the beach but....

'Olympic' London.

Before I start let me warn the reader, I am an Olympic cynic and whilst I am happy other people are having fun and feeling proud, I’m not an Olympic bunter myself. I thought the views of a dyed in the wool born and bred Londoner on how the place feels might be interesting. It is just an opinion, if I wrote about the Olympics per se it would turn into a long rant!

The ugliest logo in Olympic history?

 

What is it like to be in an Olympic City? Well quite peculiar, it is as if a large alien parasite has suddenly landed, crablike on the city and taken it over. Or maybe it is more an like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. We knew stuff was being built in a bit of London most of us never go near at great expense but suddenly, with fireworks and a lot of entertaining Danny Boyle directed guff it was upon us. London is again festooned with flags, a riot of international colour this time rather than the red, white and blue of the Union Flag.  This flag business is a good thing and is very attractive, we should have more flags every summer; I’d like to see a load of Jolly Rogers on Regent’s Street! Unfortunately the official designs for the Olympics are uniformly ugly. London is enveloped in purple with a cerise accent (it is like someone chewed a wine gum and spat it out over the city), an ugly font and an inelegant symbol outdone in ugliness only by the grotesque mascot who bears the kind of name you expect a Dickensian murderer to have. Not that that is a problem, I like the name ‘Wenlock’. I think the swimming pool should have been called the ‘sink’ and the main stadium the ‘bear pit’ for true London authenticity.

Wenlock!

 

London has also been invaded by an army of happy volunteers wearing  shell suitey type things in the aforementioned nasty colour scheme, the whole place is awash with garish nylon. The city is also full of people often proudly occasionally smugly wearing big plastic squares with the word ‘OCOG’ emblazoned on them. Those that are not Olympic storm troopers are similarly generally wrapped in sportswear. Everywhere you look people are got up like seven year olds in crackly brightly coloured clothes. The static generated must be fantastic. When you are not party to the sea of Olympic spectators it is an odd feeling, curiously Kafkaesque, of suddenly being a stranger in your own home. Like coming home from holiday to find someone has moved into your flat, but in a friendly way. 

Terrible uniforms invade London Streets...but I like the grins.

There are only two ways to approach the thing really; one is to wholeheartedly throw yourself into it and indulge in Olympic Spirit until the British position in the medal league becomes your sole overriding obsession. The bread and circuses approach is not to be dismissed, the money has gone, it will be gone when this is over so some might as well have a bit of fun and entertainment while it is here. The other approach is to quietly let it be, avoid the areas where it is happening or leave the country.  There is no real escape however short of moving to a cave and if you are not a sports fan you just have to quietly grit your teeth and get on with it, it is only a couple of weeks after all.

Pretty flags, we've got them now, can we put them out every summer?

There was a lot of scare mongering before the whole thing kicked off. Yes London Bridge station was doing a good impression of a scene from Bosch when I visited it, the rudeness of some of the visitors was startling (so much for Olympic Spirit) but the volunteers were doing a good job. It takes a certain amount of verve and fortitude to answer the same daft question forty times in a day. But they have seemed to be unremittingly cheerful and good natured which should give visitors a totally unjustified impression of Londoners as a jolly welcoming lot, like Italians but without the sunshine. Mind you the system of 'penning' travellers in was worrying, especially as the queues for particular platforms suddenly switched, a bit like the railway version of Hogwart's corridors.

The 'pens' for commuters at London Bridge.

Lots of people have heeded these doom laden warnings and taken the avoidance approach. I have never seen central London quieter; there were more people around after the bombings. Seats can be obtained on tubes and trains, theatres, pubs and clubs are quiet and last Saturday I could see broad expanses of pavement on Oxford Street.   This was very pleasant for me but not so good for traders and businesses. This was even the case during the hugely popular torch relay; people didn’t really buy much from local bars or cafes who were advised by local councillors to get extra staff in. But as a relative of mine said regarding the popularity of the torch relay ‘Londoner’s will go and watch the opening of a curtain if it is free’ and restaurants and pubs aren’t.

Nothern line was still running at 1.00 am, why only during the Olympics?

I haven’t watched much of it but ultimately it hasn’t had much negative impact on me or much impact at all really. I may get cross when the next big sweep of nurse sackings takes place especially as some of those dancing nurses are likely to get the chop. But for now I can at least, if nothing else, appreciate the surreal quality of Olympic London. There is however one aspect of it that I am complete impressed by: the underground trains running later, significantly later on Fridays and Saturdays. For a single London lady about town it makes a big difference. Why not have the late Friday and Saturdays all year?  Any future mayoral candidate who pushes this will get my vote. I also realised on Saturday that my Chinese dress was in the Olympic pink and purple (don’t ask), is the body snatching Olympic crab parasite subconsciously taking me over too?

But what will our government do with the used and finished article?