Spectator Life

Pity us poor blokes when it comes to shopping from the waist down. Never has the American axiom, ‘we all put our pants on one leg at a time,’ proved less true. Trousers, once the great leveller of society, are fast becoming a fashion minefield.  Baggy trousers are now the order of the day and if you are putting together your autumn wardrobe you might have noticed the same. Men’s trousers have ballooned, quite literally. On a recent trip to Marks & Spencer to buy some straightforward office clothes, I was instead met with rails of pantaloons which could happily double as wind socks.

Luke Wells looks like he has it all. High-ceilinged, late-Georgian chambers overlooking the Walks in Gray’s Inn, now catching the last of the evening light. Tall bookcases crammed with planet-brained case law. Dark grey suit on his back – from a little gem of a Soho tailor who does the best cutting for Savile Row. Wig and gown hanging off his panelled door – handy for the quick sprint to Court Number One at the Old Bailey to rescue that battered glamourpuss, wrongly accused of murdering her lover, currently splashed all over page three of the Telegraph.  Well, that’s what Luke thought he would be doing after reading law at Lincoln College, Oxford, and bar school.

The San-ikukai hospital in Tokyo’s Sumida ward is much like any other in the Japanese capital, save for one special feature. It has had, since March of last year, a small room on the first floor with a cradle (and nothing else), where mothers can anonymously deposit their babies, never to see them again. The hospital accepts babies up to four weeks old. They are then cared for until foster families or infant homes can be found. In July, the hospital announced it had just received its twentieth baby, most of whom had been left within 24 hours of birth. The scheme is the first in the capital but not the first in Japan.

It’s a shame that Jane Austen can’t profit from selling the adaptation rights to her novels. In her own lifetime, she made but a modest living as a writer. Today, she would be fabulously wealthy.   As it is, the copyright has long expired, so it’s all fair game. In the last three decades alone, Austen’s stories have spawned over a dozen adaptations.

When I was asked to write this article, I was told that I shouldn’t make it ‘too horny’. Some writers have strong personal brands; apparently, I have acquired one. Sydney Sweeney has hit the headlines, again, for an advert, again. In what may seem like a tedious re-run of the last round of Sydney Sweeney discourse – because it is – she has appeared in an advert with no clothing. I wish there were something meatier to the story – careful now – but that’s it. Yet, as Paul Burke has written in The Spectator, ‘In so doing, she’s driven some men wild and some women even wilder – but for very different reasons.

The revival of Bristol Cars is gratifying news. The reborn Bristol is planning to sell five more of the hand-built two-seater Fighter models for close to a million a-piece, it’s been reported, before offering all-new and potentially fully electric models. Bristols aren’t for everyone, of course. Just look at them. Squint and they could be handsome, but rarely beautiful, I think. A bit like a Habsburg prince, or indeed princess, something about their proportions is not quite right. But I love them. Always have done, ever since I saw Jeremy Clarkson being merciless about the Bristol Blenheim on Top Gear, back in the days when the programme still actually reviewed cars.  And I’m not alone here.

Marcus remembers the exact moment when he knew he was going into politics. He was 14, delicately poised between the arrival of the spots and the dropping of the voice and testicles. He’d always been a Tory; growing up in Great Missenden, there was no real alternative. But he had never known why he was a Tory. His grandfather might get misty-eyed while talking about Mrs T; he might have had a tender fascination with Princess Anne at a young age. Then he read The Blog.   The Blog was magnificent. The Blog explained how Clement Attlee had ruined Britain. The Blog explained why the NHS was an international disgrace and the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 a noose around our necks. Soon, he was hooked.

In theory, being a wizened old sexagenarian, I should feel resentful of gorgeous young women, particularly those who have monetised their erotic capital in a way I could never have dreamt of, even at my fruitiest. But on the contrary, they make me feel like cheering; I’m particularly keen on Sydney Sweeney and her fantastic rack. There is, however, one famous actress who really gets my goat; I feel an almost physical reaction when I see her photograph. Sometimes, in restaurants, when they say ‘Any allergies?’ I want to reply ‘Yes - Sarah Jessica Parker.’  On paper, I should love SJP. (It pains me to be so familiar with someone I loathe, but I resent the time it takes to type out her full name.

Things are tough for French museums right now. A dawn raid on Tuesday at the Musée Renoir in Cagnes-sur-Mer resulted in the theft of two paintings by Renoir worth £7.7m (another two were stolen but swiftly abandoned). On long term loan from the Musée d’Orsay, the paintings were seized when thieves sliced through the museum's garden fence with an electric saw. Following a spate of thefts from French museums in July, France’s patrimoine is undeniably under threat.

Next month marks the 18th anniversary of Spotify’s UK launch, an occasion that will inevitably be greeted by a tuneless chorus of doom from the cultural establishment. We’ll be treated to performative angst from all those who view the streaming giant as a corporate monster cannibalising musical art.  But for those of us with a functioning memory, this grievance misses a blindingly obvious reality: Spotify is one of the genuine marvels of modern civilization.  When I was growing up, a music collection was a luxury only for posh folk. I knew no family with more than a handful of LPs. Maybe 100 tracks were available per household at most.

Andrea ‘Andy’ Campbell was born on 21 February 1960. She liked to say that her parents named her after the Queen’s second-born son, who entered the world two days beforehand. Whether or not this was true, Andy swiftly became not just interested in the family of her near-namesake, but positively obsessed. By the age of five, she was insisting on collecting memorabilia related to the Royal Family while her peers preferred to play with dolls and teddies. One of her prized possessions was Liza Sheridan’s book, A Day With Prince Andrew, which had been published in 1962 and gave a flattering insight into what everyday life was like for the two-year-old prince.  Andy’s own existence on a new-build housing estate on the edge of Basingstoke was rather less glamorous.

This week, there has been a brutal murder. I speak not of one in the many wars in faraway lands, but one that has happened in every decent pub in this country. Timothy Taylor’s brewery, in their eternal wisdom, have decided to kill the Jovial Landlord that adorned the pump clip of their famous Landlord ale. This was apparently part of a wider campaign to attract Gen Z to the real ale scene, but I, a member of Gen Z that actually drinks Landlord, am furious about it.  They have replaced the proud, slightly balding, patriot of a landlord, pulling a pint of the good stuff in a red rugby shirt, with a skinny-looking fella in a top far too big for his frail frame.

Being randomly approached on LinkedIn has long been a reliable sign that someone wanted to sell you something, whether that be an event, a job, or some kind of software. Now, apparently, people are trying to sell you a more exciting opportunity: a date.   A friend of mine was recently approached on LinkedIn by a representative from ‘a startup that raises money for charity through matchmaking’ (the language is a clear attempt to abide by LinkedIn’s strict no romance guidelines). According to the matchmaker, my friend and her client had a lot in common on account of being both ‘international’ and ‘highly educated’. Destiny, clearly.