Uncategorized

No, I’m not going to bloody Glasto

‘Are you going to Glasto?’ Just the name – in that smug, shortened form – is enough to set my left eyelid twitching, the way it does when I read emails from people who still include pronouns in their signature. ‘Glasto’, trailing the self-satisfied whiff of BBC executives high-tailing it from Hampstead on a taxpayer-funded jolly, of hedgies glamping in a five-grand-a-night yurt and the sort of inherited wealth that means you crash in a mate’s eight-bedroom Old Rectory within the free ticket zone, rather than camping cheek-by-unwashed-jowl with the masses. No, I am not going to Glastonbury. The last time I went – and I can tell you the

The chat show is dead

I’ve been having this recurring nightmare recently that involves James Corden. The year is 2045. Society has collapsed and London is under quarantine. There is no transport in the city, so survivors get around on foot – though, for some inexplicable reason, TfL workers are still on strike. I live in a bin and survive on a diet of eggshells and cold Rustlers burgers. In my nightmare, I am abducted by a gang of Mad Max-inspired bandits who take me to the Asda Superstore in Clapham Junction and torture me for information. My constitution is strong. I refuse to tell them where I’ve hidden my scarce supply of mango-flavoured vapes.

What we’ve forgotten about intimacy

Last year one of the big oil companies informed its employees that they had to disclose any ‘intimate relationships’ with colleagues. I remain grateful that my employer has not yet asked me to do the same, because I’m not sure I could survive the embarrassment that would ensue. I don’t just enjoy ‘intimate relationships’ with numerous male and female colleagues but would also need to confess that I enjoy intimacy with multiple other people outside of work. The fact that my life is beginning to sound like a tale of sexual perversion illustrates the point that intimate relationships are nearly always understood to be sexual ones. Intimacy is a concept,

Did becoming a chef make me a bad person?

I have been in charge of a pizzeria in St John’s Wood for less than a year and already I feel misanthropy taking hold. Most notably, a complete disdain for the general public; I used to think I hated them, but now I can confirm that I definitely, really, hate them. Service is the heart of the hospitality industry, but there’s a certain kind of person who mistakes the waiters and chefs for a cadre of private staff. I used to moan, but now I just numbly get on with putting ketchup in a ramekin for them to have with their sweetcorned pizza. They win – they always win. Then

Forgive me father, for I have sworn

Perhaps it’s a sort of Original Guilt – Original Sin’s bastard offspring – that Catholics are born indoctrinated with a sense of the awesome sanctity of church, presumably predicated on the Real Presence. So for us there’s something viscerally shocking when it’s not observed. And yet… I remember being about seven, going to Mass one Sunday, and my father struggling not to laugh as a frightfully well-spoken old Jesuit tried to remove the tramp slumped in the porch with the words: ‘Will you please just fuck off?’ I knew that was really naughty language because a girl had recently been asked to leave my convent prep for deploying the word

Why television can’t depict the posh

In her 1954 essay ‘The English Aristocracy’, the author Nancy Mitford popularised the descriptions ‘U’, i.e. upper-class or aristocratic, and ‘non-U’, to denote household terms. Although she did not coin the phrase (that credit belongs to the otherwise forgotten linguist Alan S.C. Ross), she brought it to wider public attention. When her friends John Betjeman and Evelyn Waugh added their own contributions, the result was the 1956 book Noblesse Oblige: An Enquiry Into the Identifiable Characteristics of the English Aristocracy. Language termed ‘U’ included ‘loo’ rather than ‘toilet’, ‘vegetables’ rather than ‘greens’, and saying ‘what?’ rather than the apparently more polite ‘pardon?’ Although a few examples have now dated –

Julie Burchill

Let teenagers drink!

There’s not one thing I don’t love about the street in Hove where I live, with the sea at one end and the restaurant quarter at the other; if I had to fetishise a non-sentient thing, like those women who ‘marry’ rollercoasters, I’d be kinky for my street. (‘Avenue’, rather.) One of the lovely things about it is that I can see a section of Hove Lawns from my balcony – the manicured green spaces which differentiate our seafront from Brighton’s in one of many ways. (We smell nice, for a start.) Even better, I can hear Hove Lawns, which was always pleasant for me but – now I’m a

Hot weather is overrated

Having spent more than half my life living in Scotland, I found weather was probably the most common topic of casual conversation with colleagues. This is because Edinburgh, where I worked as a physician, is freezing for 11 months of the year, and Glasgow, where I was a consultant anaesthetist, rains for the same period. Hot weather was as unrequited a desire as George Clooney walking into the surgical theatre coffee room. When we were blessed with the one month that the sun shone weakly down on us for a few minutes, we basked. Never mind that the warmth was so faint we had to take a woolly jumper everywhere

The tyranny of mobility scooters

I live in a small cathedral city in southern England. The chances of having my mobile phone snatched from my hand by an opportunistic thief, or my Rolex watch wrenched from my wrist by a brutish thug are still mercifully small. But another menace to life and limb has recently emerged here: the mobility vehicle mob. It is almost 47 years since the first modern mobility vehicle was delivered to a customer in July 1978. In the past half-century, they have become a now ubiquitous nuisance on our streets and pavements. Originally intended to aid those genuinely unable to walk, such as the elderly or physically handicapped, mobility vehicles have

The cult of the farmer’s market

Farmer’s markets are a very cheeky wheeze and we all know it. Their promise – getting back to peasants’ basics of veg yanked from the ground – carries a hefty premium compared to supermarket food, which actual peasants have to buy. Indeed, supermarket food, from veg and fruit to eggs and cheese and bread, is generally two or three times cheaper and tastes just as good. But it seems that we are already in a world so dystopian that only the rich want – and can afford – soily spinach sold loose on a table. Certainly, the rich will queue for sorrel and strawberries, yoghurt and kimchi, raw milk, chicken

Four wagers for the last two days of Royal Ascot

My main fancies for Royal Ascot this year have all run in the first three days and the final two days look a lot harder to me in terms of finding good wagers. Winning money from the bookmakers is hard, giving it back to them is easy. I am therefore going to approach today and tomorrow with caution and have fewer bets. In today’s Group 1 Commonwealth Cup (3.05 p.m.) over six furlongs, Shadow of Light and Jonquil have been heavily backed as both horses drop back in trip from a mile. The former was third in the Betfred 2000 Guineas at Newmarket, while the latter was second in the

Grape Britain: English wine is having its moment in the sun

Our homegrown wine was, until fairly recently, regarded internationally as a bit of a joke. Peter Ustinov could quip that he imagined hell to be ‘Italian punctuality, German humour and English wine’. Likewise, Lord Jay, serving as a diplomat in Paris, recalled the British ambassador rubbing up against resistance from the home side – let alone foreigners – as he sought to be an early advocate. The ambassador was hosting Edward Heath, President Giscard d’Estaing and the governor of the Bank of France for lunch: ‘I remember [ambassador] Ewen Fergusson saying, ‘Sir Edward, wonderful that you’re here. I am tempted to serve you a delicious English white wine”. “I hope,

The Good Life simply wasn’t very good

A new documentary is to be screened later this year celebrating 50 years of everybody’s favourite 1970s sitcom The Good Life. I will not be joining in with the festivities. During the two-hour show, 85-year-old Penelope Keith, who played the irascible Margo Leadbetter, will revisit some of the original locations, including Kewferry Road in Northwood, which stood in for fictional Acacia Avenue in Surbiton – I can feel your excitement growing. The producers have also promised to recreate some of the creaky old sets – OK, calm down at the back. While I’m all for a bit of nostalgia, do we really need to keep reminding ourselves how innocent TV

A trio of tips for day three of Royal Ascot

At first glance, today’s Britannia Stakes handicap (5 p.m.) at Royal Ascot looks an impossible puzzle to solve. No less than 30 three-year-old runners are due to line up and plenty of them are plot horses that will go on to win off much higher official marks than they are running from today. However, my strong fancy for this race is PAROLE D’ORO to pull off a coup that has been some two years in the planning. This lightly-raced colt has only run three times in his career, just enough to earn a handicap rating. Each of his three runs has seen an improvement but I am convinced the best