Wear a veil if you like – but don’t treat women like that

What sort of clothing do you wear when you go to the opera? I assume some of you do go to the opera, otherwise the Royal Opera House could be turned into a giant Wetherspoon’s pub. I have never been. Given a choice I would rather browse through a collection of photographs of Brooks Newmark MP’s penis, or indeed gnaw off my right leg.

If I were somehow coerced into attending, then without question the costume of choice for me would be a niqab. Then I could sleep without being noticed. Or listen to something more interesting on headphones, such as a collection of Danny Alexander’s speeches or a greatest hits compilation from the Radio 4 programme Does He Take Sugar? Better still, if the opera was taking place in Paris, there’s a good chance I’d be kicked out by the mob in an anti-Muslim rage. A night in the cells being abused and physically assaulted by unwashed French xenophobes would be uncomfortable, granted — but also slightly preferable. It’s not the music that irritates, by the way, it’s the rest of it.

An Arab woman dressed in a niqab — the full Darth Vader outfit, little slit for the eyes — was recently evicted from an opera house in Paris for exactly this reason. Midway through an interminable performance of Verdi’s La Traviata, a member of the cast clocked the woman and a sort of revolt took place. The whole bunch of warbling luvvies refused to continue unless the Arab was chucked out. In France, wearing a niqab is illegal — as is not wearing one in some of the more severely backward Muslim countries. The woman came from one of the horrible Gulf States; we have not been told which.