Spectator Life

If I had to pick a king of women I’d call a draw between Vermeer, the 17th century painter, and Thomas Hardy, novelist and poet. Both had an outstanding capacity to take women’s interior lives seriously, to see individual women as distinct, intense and complex, and far from corresponding to any feminine stereotype. Whether it’s Vermeer’s young woman with a pearl necklace, Eustacia Venn in Hardy’s The Woodlanders or his mournful poems about his wife Emma’s death, these are moving, emotionally astute portraits. The pick-up artist movement, which began in the early 2000s, created its own breed of Hardys But while Vermeer seems to have been a decent husband, Hardy was not.

For the first time in its 1,250 year history, Japan’s Naked Man Festival is to admit women to its sacred rites and rituals – well, one sacred ritual anyway. Later this month, a cohort of 40 women, clothed, will be allowed to participate in the naoizasa ritual where they will carry bamboo grass wrapped in cloth into the local shrine. While hardly a stunning breakthrough for women’s liberation, the decision is nonetheless revealing. Sanitising rather bizarre local events is unlikely to make much difference It is less a reflection of changing opinions than shifting demographics, with Japan’s vast underpopulated rural areas having to be more flexible with their ancient customs in order to keep them alive.

Holed up with Covid recently, I decided to binge on some undemanding TV and selected property programmes, knowing that the genre satisfied some basic human instincts – nosiness about other people’s lives, other people’s taste, other people’s money and other people’s dreams. I was happy with my choice – confident that property programmes were the chicken soup of television, gently nourishing me back into health. There really is something for every aspect of the human psyche in them – curiosity, aspiration, humour, voyeurism, escapism Apparently, there’s a whole world of people who appreciate these shows.

The look on the doctor’s face as he showed my parents the X-ray of my skull was quizzical but reassuring. ‘We were a bit worried by this line on the left,’ he indicated a very thin line from the top of the cranium, straight down. ‘But we saw that there is a line exactly similar on the other side of the X-ray, which persuaded us that it was a problem with the film, not your son’s skull’. The violent element in rugby has always been controversial. That is one of the reasons football came about We were free to leave, with advice to watch out if I felt sleepy or sick for the next few days. I did get a bit of time off school. Rugby had brought me to A&E.

We have in our kitchen a mug purporting to belong to ‘Romney Marsh Mountain Rescue’. There is, of course, no such organisation – the mug is a reference to a long-standing family joke, about how my brothers and I love mountaineering despite having grown up in one of the lowest, flattest parts of England. The Marsh has a handful of small hillocks – really just bumps with delusions of grandeur – but overall it is very flat. My Ordnance Survey map does not mark a single contour line from Rye in the south west to Hythe in the north east and from the Royal Military Canal to the Channel. Winter gales come roaring up the Channel with startling regularity After a quarter of a century away, I returned to live here with my wife and children last summer.

It was standing completely still, about 40 yards away, partially obscured by a clump of hazel: a pure white deer. It looked almost iridescent in the gloom of an overcast winter day. My dogs were straining at the lead but otherwise all sense of movement ceased for half a minute, maybe longer. I managed to decapitate it with a twist and fastened the head and horns to my car roof with bungee cords Then something broke. The white deer twitched. It was only when it began to run that we realised it had been accompanied by half a dozen other, darker-skinned herdmates. In just a few seconds we were alone again. The straining dogs were the only sign that anything had happened at all.

Churchill immortalised the phrase the ‘special relationship’ in his 1946 ‘Sinews of Peace’ address. He was talking about the UK and the US. And when we think of America and Britain’s relationship, we think of the wars we’ve fought together and the diplomatic camaraderie we’ve shared over the past hundred years. We think of Iraq and Afghanistan. We think of Reagan and Thatcher waxing lyrical over the phone. But there’s something else that’s special about our relationship, and that’s Britain’s fascination with American culture. I was indoctrinated into American culture from an early age in the form of television I’ve spent my whole life watching America. We all have.

I’ve been carrying with me a little black silk purse with a tortoise shell closing since my mother died 11 years ago. I suppose it’s one of the last things left from my beloved, stylish mother. To help me pick out a replacement, I enlisted my seven-year-old granddaughter, Maélle, a fashionista like me and her great grandmother The little black purse has been sitting in the bottom of my bigger purses; let’s call them handbags, although ‘handbag’ seems so old fashioned a word. I only use ‘handbag’ now to remember my French licence plate – EY 107 HB, ‘every year I buy 107 handbags’ – having moved here following my husband’s sudden death a year ago.

Most England managers lose their jobs over bad results: Roy Hodgson was sacked after being humiliated by Iceland, Graham Taylor for losing a must-win qualifier against Holland, Kevin Keegan quit after a bitter home defeat to Germany. There have been exceptions, though: Sam Allardyce went for bragging to an undercover reporter how he could do certain favours for a hefty fee, Fabio Capello after a row with the FA over John Terry’s captaincy when accused of racism, Don Revie defected to take UAE oil money.  The episode seems to have foretold an imminent shift in our culture But Glenn Hoddle remains unique among England managers – possibly among any football manager anywhere ever  – for having been sacked over a theological issue. This strange episode unfolded 25 years ago.

So, what are you up to this summer? Going to Germany, right? I mean, with both England and Scotland having qualified for the Uefa 2024 Euros (and with Wales still in with a chance via the play-offs) 14 June to 14 July is surely blocked off in your diary? It certainly is in mine. And with four matches being played in Munich, I know exactly where I plan to be when it comes to kick-off: in Italy’s northernmost city.  I did have something of a Where Eagles Dare moment, trying to blend in as I drank my fill and listened to the oompah band Oh, do keep up! That’s what locals and regular visitors call Munich. It’s a fabulous city and, yes, rather Italianate with its cafes, bars, parks and open spaces for promenading.

We hear a lot these days about how social media causes many of our ills. You may have heard some of that from me. And I was right. But I’ve recently realised that there’s one thing where the socials – in particular, Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) – score a positive triumph. They are the best medium for the appreciation of paintings. Like most of us, I was corralled around museums and galleries as a child I know, I know, that sounds loopy. I can hardly believe I’m saying it myself. But hear me out. The purely visual arts have always been a bit of a problem area for me. Until my revelation, I’d never been quite sure how to react to paintings. I thought that my own lack of artistic skill meant that I just couldn’t, at a very deep level, get a handle on art.

On a cold January night 39 years ago in Los Angeles, 46 of the world’s biggest egos gathered together to record a song that was, according to Netflix ‘The Greatest Night In Pop.’ The song was the grandly titled ‘We Are The World’, a hastily composed follow up to the monumentally successful British charity single ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’? Just seven weeks earlier. At least those appearing in the British version came across as less wholesome and more honest Band Aid’s effort was hardly a great song but the occasion captured the UK’s imagination and wallets so soon after pictures of starving Ethiopians had sent shockwaves across the nation. But ‘USA For Africa’, as the American supergroup called themselves, was seen as a poor follow-up.