Spectator Life

A smartly dressed, bowler-hatted man and a lady in a fascinator – both of whom would hardly look out of place at Royal Ascot – stride into the pigsty with clipboards, while a white-coated man (looking a little too much like a butcher) seeks the views of a small crowd of adults and children on the qualities of four physically impressive swine. This is the delightful eccentricity of the English county show – part agricultural competition, part funfair, part entertainment, part craft fair, part trade show, part society occasion, and part food and drink extravaganza – that provides an unrivalled insight into the complexity of modern Britain’s rural economy and culture.

It was when I saw an entire crate of orange juice exit my local supermarket that I knew something had died. The Artful Dodger school of shoplifting has officially been boarded up, its artisan poachers and pilferers as redundant to the modern world of thieving as swag bags, eye masks and soft sole shoes.  There’s no longer any attempt at discretion or skill when it comes to shoplifting in my nearest Co-op in south London. The thieves don’t enter in trench coats and furtively peruse the aisles. They stroll in, take as much as they can carry and walk out again, knowing that the worst punishment they face is being given some scatological invective from the five-foot-nothing woman of venerable age who is usually locked inside her till cubicle.

There’s never been a better time to be a conspiracy theorist: government funded plans to dim the sun; a pop star embarking on a questionable space flight; supermarkets stripped bare after Spain and Portugal were plunged into a catastrophic blackout; Robot policemen on the streets of China; the US admitting to the existence of UFOs.  Like a lot of people my age, my gateway drug to the murky world of cover-ups was The X Files. For an hour each week, my young mind was exposed to alien abductions, secret societies, cannibal cults and paranormal phenomena. And my interest in the other worldly – and the people who wholeheartedly believe that humanity is being misled en masse – has never abated.

Is there any intrinsic problem with sex parties? Of course not. At least, not for those of us who believe in the liberal tenet of living and letting live. This tenet has been put to the test by recent events at Belair House, a Georgian pile in subdued Dulwich. Hired last month by the company Heaven Circle, which puts on ‘naughty events’, including ‘online parties’ (you can join with face blurred or wearing a mask), the event at Belair was very much offline, with 2,000 condoms provided, a naked fire show, plus ‘500 candles, 500 roses, two DJs, THE BIG BED, three playrooms, five performers, one shibari artist, one Domme, 2,000 condoms and 60 toys,’ according to the company’s Instagram post. Shibari is the Japanese art of knot-tying.

Jockey Kieran Shoemark and trainer Charlie Fellowes are two talented men who deserve a change of fortune. Shoemark lost his job as first jockey to John and Thady Gosden after being blamed for Field of Gold’s narrow defeat in the Betfred 2000 Guineas at Newmarket four weeks ago. Shoemark then rode Fellowes’ filly Shes Perfect to victory in the French 1000 Guineas at Longchamp, only for the three-year-old filly to be demoted from first to second for interference. To add insult to injury, the decision was appealed and despite evidence from both men that they had been hard done by, they failed to get the result overturned. On Sunday, Fellowes and Shoemark will return to France, this time to Chantilly, for the Qatar Prix du Jockey Club, or French Derby (3.05 p.m.

‘They’re selling hippie wigs in Woolworths, man… the greatest decade in the history of mankind is over,’ laments Danny the Dealer of the 1960s at the end of Withnail and I. These days, given the apparently insatiable appetite for all things 1990s, you could be forgiven for assuming that they've pinched that title. Nineties fashion and music are back: Pulp have just released their first album in 24 years, while Oasis are reforming for a series of mega gigs. There’s even been a Labour landslide.

When I read on the BBC website that ‘England will be the first country in the world to start vaccinating people against the sexually transmitted infection gonorrhoea’, I felt a flare of rare patriotism. We Brits, far from the no-sex-please-we’re-British libel which self-loathing Europhiles like to paste on us, have been known for our sexual generosity (some might say incontinence) since the dawn of cheap foreign travel, so it makes sense for us to take preventive measures. A tiny, immature bit of me even wanted to snigger, as when I was a young girl the idea of ‘the clap’ was a matter of some amusement on the part of my cohort. However, this is a serious business. It will not be available for everyone.

A colleague took me out to dinner recently, repaying a favour. Ben likes his steak and we ended up at some high-end joint in Mayfair. Unsure what to order, I left it to him and was served Wagyu beef, which literally translates as ‘Japanese cow’. When it came, it was pale in colour with lines of fat running all the way through. It didn’t look like steak. Nor did it cut like one – I probably could have used a spoon. Worst of all, it didn’t taste like one. It was a bit like eating solidified grease that required no chewing and left a funny kind of aftertaste. More foie gras than steak – not just in terms of flavour and texture, but also in terms of force feeding.

I tried getting my husband to go with me, but wild horses wouldn’t have dragged him so I forced a friend’s son to come instead. I’m talking about going to see Tyler, The Creator at the O2. That’s Tyler, The Creator, the magnificent hip hop artist who was banned from the UK in 2015 by then Home Secretary Theresa May on the grounds of supporting homophobia and acts of terrorism.  What, you’ve never heard of him? Well, that’s clearly because you are not as down with the kids as me. I may be a middle-class boomer from Chiswick but I’m also a raging hip hop fan and I know my stuff. Hip hop, drill, rap, trap: you name it, I love it – the more guns, the more swear words, the more misogyny the better. You call Hamilton rap? Oh, please.

‘I have died and gone to heaven,’ the gentle-faced, fortysomething American beside me murmured into her phone. I turned and stared. Too late I remembered the instructions repeated in childhood not to stand with one’s mouth open. But I couldn’t help myself. In the glorious sun at Chelsea Flower Show, I – unlike my neighbour – felt like I had died and gone to hell. Tuesday morning at Chelsea Flower Show is among life’s rare treats. At least, it used to be.

Astute Scottish trainer Jim Goldie cannot hide his admiration for his five-year-old sprinter AMERICAN AFFAIR, who runs at Haydock tomorrow in the Group 2 Betfred Temple Stakes (3.30 p.m.). Goldie knows a thing or two about decent speedsters having trained the likes of Jack Dexter and Hawkeyethenoo in recent years – the former, in fact, finished second in the Temple Stakes a decade ago. The veteran handler said this week that American Affair was ‘very exciting’ and up there with the best sprinters he had trained which is why Goldie has given his stable star an entry in the King Charles III Stakes at Royal Ascot next month. American Affair has won two 5 furlong handicaps already this year, most recently at York off an official rating of 98.