Spectator Life

Such an awful lot of stuff is happening right now, even the keenest observer of social trends could be forgiven for missing a statistical milestone passed earlier this month. So here it is: at the beginning of October, it was revealed that, for the first time since the 1970s baby bust, deaths outnumbered births in the UK – meaning, in effect, that all of our population growth (about 680,000 for this year) came from immigration. The reason why is obvious. The boomers – i.e. people born during the great baby boom of 1945-1965 – are dying out, and they are not being properly replaced, thanks to a low total fertility rate (TFR, which equals ‘births per woman’). In England and Wales, TFR fell to just 1.49, far below the accepted replacement rate of 2.1.

When I was in London recently, I arranged to meet some old university friends at the pub. Now in our late 50s, we’re getting quite decrepit. Hair – if we have any left – is grey or greying; waistlines are expanding. We talked about our deteriorating vision and hearing, high blood pressure, dodgy knees. None of us is retired yet, but it’s a topic that comes up more frequently. Can we afford it? What will we do with all that extra time? Almost no one reaches middle age without life delivering a few sucker punches Once we’d exhausted the gloomy prospects of impending old age, we returned to our favourite topic of conversation – our youth, particularly our university years.

Across vineyards in England and Wales, secateurs are being sharpened and buckets are at the ready as owners prepare for harvest. October is usually the month commercial vines give up their fruit before being whisked away to the winemaker–cum–alchemist who turns the juice into wine. As a former vineyard owner (I sold up in January) harvest was always a nervy time of year, enough to drive you to drink. It represents nine months of pruning, de-leafing, weeding, replacing vines, and chemical spraying (yes, pesticides), all assisted by the right amount of rain and sun at the right times. By October, the grapes have, hopefully, the optimum balance of acid and sugar to allow the winemaker to make a balanced, palatable wine with good body.

These days, it’s fashionable to get deliveries of vegetable boxes. Some do it through devotion to the dour idol of seasonality; the true worshipper knows they are buying a challenge. Many great recipes are created to deal with gluts and shortages. Digby Anderson, in his wonderful Spectator food column, pointed out that every good kitchen runs on the solera system. Cooking with what one has, rather than going out and getting what one wants, provides some useful lessons. Foraging for mushrooms is the best lesson of all. The result is both a challenge and, if you’re lucky, a glut too. Beneath every fallen leaf or umbral shadow lies possibility; one walks in hope and arrives, occasionally, in a state of grace.

And so ends another Frieze, where art lovers from across the globe gather to admire each other’s horn-rimmed spectacles, regulation black attire and wacky hairdos. Like so many creative events held in the capital, Frieze isn’t so much about looking at interesting artwork as being seen to be looking at interesting artwork. The fair is held annually at a temporary hangar in Regent’s Park and is essentially a spectator sport where leggy blondes eye up wealthy collectors on the make. Don’t even attempt to crash the Deutsche Bank Wealth Management Lounge. When will contemporary artists get it into their diamond-encrusted skulls that the public are immune to their shock values?

We hit downtown Zalánpatak at rush hour, and it was gridlocked. True, you get used to livestock on Romanian roads; the 30-minute gravel zig-zag from the nearest main road had brought us up against stray dogs, horses and carts and free-range pigs. A shepherd huddled near the roadside in a sheepskin poncho – crook in one hand, iPhone in the other. But it’s when you’re sitting immobile on a village street with a herd of cows pushing past on either side – when you feel the vehicle rock as bovine flank thwacks against the car door – that you start to grasp why King Charles III might have a bit of a soft spot for the place.

Tonight, the BBC will be broadcasting what is – to my mind – the scariest film ever made. Indeed, I would go further than that, I would say this movie is the scariest human artwork in any form – and that includes novels, plays, stories, the lot. This film beats them all, and by a distance. What is it? Of course, I’m not going to tell you that straight off, that would break all the rules of scary suspense writing. First, I want to examine the underlying questions: why do we like being artificially scared? And what makes a particular ghost story or Dracula remake genuinely frightening? The questions sound simple; they are not.

I knew that my adjustment to living here was complete when, this morning, I hit the send button of an email. I had written to the parish council suggesting that the local church change its street signage. This is, of course, the critical moment when the character undergoes a metamorphosis into Flora Robson. ‘The board is in a shade of blue one associates with a major hospital,’ I wrote in mild protest. I was about to file him away as a bisexual in search of his first same-sex experience I suggested a smaller sign in heritage-green. The clerk of the parish council obviously runs a tight ship because she responded within the hour. A new sign was being ordered, she said, and thanked me for my interest. Naturally, being English, I replied thanking her for replying to me.