Spectator Life

The greatest delusion ever sold to us by modern advertising is not that we need to buy water in bottles or that rocks make good pets. It’s the delusion that we should expect to be happy all the time. This idea certainly would have been news to our ancient ancestors. Over millions of years, they became the dominant hominid on the planet because their brains evolved to be survival machines, not happiness generators. The first peals of laughter around those early campfires were not because everyone was having a good time; laughter evolved as a social bonding signal to communicate to the rest of the tribe: ‘Phew, we’re safe now. Looks like we’ve seen off that saber-toothed tiger.

As I hit the pillow, up popped a notification: ‘Threads’, Meta’s new offering, is available to download. My heart thumped – I’ve been excited about this launch since I first heard of it. As a frustrated influencer, and somebody who couldn’t care less what Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk are doing to each other, I don’t care about the politics. I just thought Threads could be just right for me. And social media is all about me, me, me, obviously.  It’s easy to take a photograph of myself. I do it a lot. But Twitter is a different kind of vanity – for people who aren’t necessarily obsessed with images. That’s why I’ve always felt tentative about it. Threads will be better, I say to myself, as the app downloads.  Is this what having a child is like?

Two years after his death, the army veteran and patron saint of the NHS, Captain Tom, is in the headlines again. Hannah Ingram-Moore, his daughter, has come under fire for allegedly using the Captain Tom Foundation's name to build a spa and swimming pool complex at her house.  The story of Captain Tom captured the jumbled imagination of the British public during the pandemic. In April 2020 at the height of the coronavirus fright and lockdown, Captain Tom decided to walk 100 laps of his garden to raise £1,000 for the NHS in honour of his 100th birthday. In under a month, he raised £39 million.  In a time of depressing, repetitive news cycles, Captain Tom was instantly catapulted to the status of national treasure.

On my 20th birthday, I locked myself in the bathroom of my bungalow in­­ Billericay and cried. Having achieved my dream – becoming a published writer – at the tender age of 17, I thought it was all downhill from there. Yes, some of this had to do with marrying the first man I had sex with; the idea that I was only ever meant to do the deed with him alone appalled me beyond words. But there was also a general feeling that my value was in some way intrinsically bound up with my extreme youth. Fast-forward to the day I turned 60, when I woke up in an Art Deco flat with the sea at the bottom of the street, married to a man (third time lucky) who could still make me laugh after a quarter of a century.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the maaaiiin event of the eeevening. In the red corner, fighting out of Boca Chica, Texas, Eeeeelon ‘the Execuuutioner’ MUUUSK! And his opponent, in the blue corner, fighting out of Palo Alto, California, Maaaark ‘The Madman’ ZUCKERBEEERG!  Sadly, we might never get the fight between Elon Musk of Twitter and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. Musk has said that he would be ‘up for a cage fight’ with Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg then responded simply: ‘Send me location.’ The internet erupted. UFC legend Georges St-Pierre offered to train Musk while UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones announced that he would be ‘Team Zuck’. Bookmakers started taking bets.

In a new monthly series, Spectator Life will be bringing you facts, stories and items of general wonderment associated with the month ahead. Welcome to July – where we learn what ‘Twix’ is short for, why England’s World Cup-winning footballers painted white stripes on to their boots and how many times Charles and Diana met before their wedding… 1 July 1903: The first ever Tour de France gets under way. If you think the race has had its controversies in recent times, you should have seen it in the early years. Competitors sometimes had themselves towed along by cars, or simply got into the car for a lift. Others took the train.

As a motorcyclist, I’m used to hearing complaints about loud exhausts. Plenty of bikers revel in the roar of their motor – after all, a powerful engine is one of the main appeals of motorbiking. But for anyone living near a busy road, the sound of revving can be thoroughly stressful. Most people who spend time in towns or cities will have jumped at the distinctive noise of a tailpipe backfire, a couple of short explosive bursts that can sound like gunshots, or the drone of a clearly illegal exhaust note. The idea that someone has modified their car or motorbike to give the rest of us a fright is downright infuriating. One suspects that it is mostly a young male thing: adolescent drivers shouting ‘look at me!’ in the most juvenile way.

Once I thought nothing could make residential Britain look uglier than pebble-dashing, PVC windows and satellite dishes. I was wrong. As if the country had not been brutally homogenised enough by the fact that every high street has the same shops, now every residential road is reduced to being an identical backdrop for a very persistent invader: the wheelie bin. Lined up like Daleks, they are breeding in my North London neighbourhood, blocking front gardens and pavements. Outside houses split into flats, where each has its own set, there are actual crowds of these 4.5ft graceless plastic buckets, which come in multiple colours for different sorts of rubbish. When wheelie bins first started infiltrating our streets just over a decade ago, we valiantly tried to fight back.

‘Remember to flirt outrageously.’ This essential piece of advice is imparted courtesy of Country and Town House magazine for its readers curious about Scottish reeling. The reel, a social folk dance, dates back to 16th-century Scotland and has remained popular for all this time, notwithstanding a brief hiatus in the 17th century when the Scots Covenanters assumed the stance (rightfully, some might say) that such amusement leads to mischief leads to sin. Less curious about the dancing than the flirtation, I joined some friends for the final, sweaty session of the season at London Reels.

In 1970, Glastonbury was a humble new festival for ‘free thinking people’. Entry cost £1 and you were given free milk for the duration. Today Glastonbury attracts more than a quarter of a million people from all over the world. Tickets cost £335, reassuringly expensive enough to keep the riff-raff out. You’re more likely to pitch your tent next to a corporate lawyer than anyone devoted to the counter-culture. Glasto is the culture now — and in 2023 the culture is the exorbitant cost-of-living. A pint of beer at the festival costs £7; half a pint of Coca Cola is £3.  Most events at Left Field could easily be staged at the Tory party conference later this year Glastonbury is still primarily about music, thank goodness.

Seeing Boris Johnson’s byline in the Daily Mail, I felt a flare of the affection which made me break free from my blue-collar tribalism and vote Tory for the first time in 2019. I remember thinking that the experience was rather like losing one’s virginity; worrying about it for months, then secretly planning it, then taking the plunge and thinking the morning after – ‘Gosh, that was nothing to be scared of – I might even do it again!’ I’ve been quite the reprobate myself during my long, louche life, and I’ve certainly lied and adulterated, so of course I can’t condemn anything that I’ve done too, as that would make me a filthy hypocrite. What I can’t forgive in a politician is sanctimoniousness – and he had none.

Haruki Murakami said that ‘I feel that most of what I know about writing fiction I learned from music.’ Music and literature enjoy a close relationship. Authors rely on rhythm and tone for their writing. So when a writer chooses to incorporate music into their work, it always makes for a powerful moment, connecting the reader in a sensory way to the story.  Music functions as a character in Pride and Prejudice. As a guest at Netherfield Hall one evening, Elizabeth Bennet’s sister Mary gives a performance that is not well received. Her voice is described as ‘weak, and her manner affected.’ Mary, however, remains blissfully unaware of the uncomfortable atmosphere her music provides.

On hearing of the Duchess of Sussex’s alleged fondness for the Diabolo de Cartier Music Box (retailing for almost £3,000, in lacquered wood and gold-finish metal, freed bird motif turns when ‘La Vie En Rose’ plays), I reflected on the adult liking for childish things.  Though the box is ostensibly for Meghan’s infant daughter Lilibet Ltd – sorry, Lilibet Diana – a source told Australia’s New Idea magazine that ‘Meghan has fallen in love with Cartier’s absolutely divine music boxes.

In the heart of Shoreditch, a handful of arts students have strayed from their typical east London mould. Those who study at the Prince’s Foundation School of Traditional Arts are taught, through research and the practice of traditional arts and crafts, to ‘experience the beauty of the order of nature – a spiritual, sacred beauty, connecting the whole of creation.’ The School’s ethos is centred around the philosophical vision of its president, the King. Charles is known to have some woolly ideas about aesthetics and spirituality and alternative medicine, articulated in his 2010 book Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World.

If Budweiser is the King of Beers, as its slogan claims, then Bud Light has long been the Queen. Launched over 40 years ago, in 1982, and now the world’s most successful low-calorie beer, ‘B Minus’ occupies a funny sweet spot in America’s sprawling consumer conscience. Also known as ‘redneck soda’, ‘frat water’ and ‘turtle jiz’ – Bud Light is a product that conveys a mass-marketable sense of irony. That’s what ad men dream about.   But then, two months ago, Anheuser Busch, Bud’s parent company, did something stupid. Some marketing whizz decided it would be super-provocative to ‘partner’ – as marketing drones like to say – with the trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

There has always been something fitting about the idea that Succession will be the last great show on television. Logan Roy, the patriarch, is old media made flesh, slowly declining into debt and dementia. The show revelled in the fact that none of the next-in-line knew how to replicate him.  From its premiere in 2018 to its last episode this week, HBO’s dynastic drama stood out from a crowd of forgettable spin-offs and interchangeable franchises, amassing countless awards and millions of viewers.  Succession was tragically hilarious and hilariously tragic Succession fast became appointment viewing: you couldn’t actually wait for the next episode to land.