Spectator Life

By now you’ve surely seen the photographs. In one, a silver-haired man in a black leather jacket sits beside a slim, attractive woman in a long white coat. In another the same pair are raising their glasses in a toast. The images could not be more anodyne, the story behind them could scarcely be more explosive.  The man is Jensen Huang, 63, the boss of Nvidia, whose chips power the AI revolution – and have made him worth more than $150 billion. The woman is Alice Huang (no relation), a Chinese businesswoman who looks to be in her forties. Jensen has now admitted being unfaithful to his wife of more than four decades, the third person is presumably Alice.

There is a moment when a tool becomes a toy. For the Range Rover that moment probably arrived a long time ago. But this week’s announcement that all the cheaper, sub-£100k models are being discontinued was the final transition from grease to glitter. This British industrial masterpiece will now only be gift-wrapped and handed to people who don't know where the bonnet release is.  When the first Range Rover rolled out of Solihull in 1970 it invented the category of posh-roader. As the first true SUV it carried a remarkably reasonable price tag of £1,998. That was less than half the price of an Aston Martin and about a fifth the cost of a Rolls Royce.  That weirdly boxy upright Range Rover was a glorious instrument of utility.

I'll never forget seeing a fellow in Las Vegas - a veritable man-mountain - wearing a T-shirt which bore the legend 'NO FAT CHICKS'. I thought at first that it might be a joke, but when other men gave him a high-five, he glowed with porky pleasure. Not a ‘Yeah, ironic, right?’ or a cupping of his manly breasts to be seen. Though extreme, it was just the ultimate and logical version of one of the last double standards: ugly men judging female pulchritude in a way ugly women never rate male good looks - or the lack of such. It was recently exemplified by the ‘DAVID BLUNKETT!’ response beloved by social media wags in the wake of Laura Kuenssberg’s recent teasing (preceding her forthcoming memoir) that a politician had once perhaps proffered an unwanted threesome.

What a difference a month makes. From September 28 to October 6, Paris thrilled to the spectacle of their annual fashion week showing clothes for Spring/Summer 2027. Many stars were there; even the ‘radical’ ones, such as Dua Lipa at Chanel. Naomi Campbell got around on a Lime bike - followed by a bodyguard minding her £85,000 handbag on a second one, an image which sums up the hypocritical elitism of the occasion beautifully.   Paris Fashion Week overlapped slightly with the first peaceful protests in the French capital about such issues as teacher shortages.

In the late 1980s, when I had rarely seen the inside of a high-end restaurant, I happened upon one local to me at the time, in Finsbury Park. Jacques – a small, exquisite French gaff named after its chef and owner – was nestled between a newsagent and an ironmonger on a grotty bit of Blackstock Road.  So very French was Jacques himself that he was once overheard (via a kitchen intercom) using the most offensive of four-letter words to describe the English, when someone had complained about the size of the dishes. The restaurant was known for serving up the then-novel concept of ‘nouvelle cuisine.’ Those dishes were indeed tiny.

One sweltering summer many moons ago, I spent a deliriously drunken day on Brighton Pier with my new, young, posh friend down from London for the weekend. I woke up the next morning, stretched happily at the thought of another day of doing nothing much in the sun - and shrieked in horror as I saw my friend’s name tattooed in what looked like - to add insult to injury - Comic Sans font across my knuckles.   My shriek brought my mate rushing in - and we were now united in woe, as it appeared that she had done the same with my name. We went out to my swimming pool to wash away our sorrows - and were delighted when, on drying off, the ‘tattoos’ faded to barely nothing. They were temporary!

It’s as good an indicator as you’ll find of this government’s asinine attitude to rural Britain that you’re reading a piece in which a Spectator writer semi-seriously considers the far-right credentials of various dog breeds. How right-wing is your dog? in itself sounds like one of Alan Partridge’s increasingly desperate pitches for a new TV show.    Pity the poor black Lab, for it’s these harmless thickos of the dog world that have aroused Labour’s ire.

Earlier this year, I did one of the most adult things possible within my financial grasp: I renewed my passport. Murderous-looking photo aside, the renewal was notable because I did not really feel the £102 when it left my bank account. And for that, I have Vinted to thank.  This is a technology that has turned the contents of our wardrobes into a vast, national marketplace: we can sell things we no longer want, buy things we do, haggle with strangers, find bargains that would never have existed on our local high street and turn a pile of unwanted clothes into cold hard cash.   No wonder we are flocking to it. An estimated 17.4 million Britons use Vinted, making it the country’s third-largest fashion retailer, behind only Primark and Next.

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.

Throw out your grandfather clocks, the naysayers said, and banish your commodes to the scrapheap and junkshop. Brown furniture - invented in the Georgian and Regency eras and popularised for the mass market in the Victorian period - has been decreed by those tastemakers in the know to be as dead as Jacob Marley – a man who undoubtedly would have cherished those heavy mahogany bed frames and cabinets that were synonymous with his age – and showing even fewer signs of returning, even in spectral form.   The reasons for the apparent demise of brown furniture are less to do with a rejection of sturdy, well-built items that were once the pride and joy of any household and more because we are living smaller lives, in all senses.

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.

Are you a ‘recliner’ or a ‘refrainer’? Do you ease your seat back on an aeroplane as soon as you can, or remain bolt upright and swallow your fury as the headrest in front is lowered a few inches from your nose? Or are you to be found in the slender oval on the Venn diagram; the waiting room between recliner and refrainer, hanging on until the food service has finished before caressing the recline button? Whose armrest is it? Nobody cares anymore. All anyone wants to know is will the person in front of them recline their seat?

The gestation of Usha Vance’s fourth baby – born on Sunday – has made for a politically revealing spectacle. Not only was she the only Second Lady to be pregnant since Ellen Colfax, the wife of Schuyler Colfax, in 1870, but she led, throughout the visible portion of the pregnancy, with just that: the visible bump. For J.D. Vance’s wife, there was no locking herself away or hiding her pregnant belly beneath frumpy maternity wear. Instead, she embraced the Trumpian vogue for ‘babycon’ through a range of clingy pregnancy dresses. Since Donald Trump’s second inauguration last year, the ‘Maga babe’ has become as much an aesthetic phenomenon as a political one.

You know what I want with a haircut? Silence. I want the hairdresser to keep his or her eyes on the scissors and not get distracted by conversation. I want to know that, during the crucial period when it could all go horribly wrong, the man or woman at the back is concentrating. I like having a conversation with hairdressers, who are generally interesting people, but I just don’t want it while they’re working. I was rather impressed by Leslie Cavendish, The Beatles’ hairdresser, who was on Michael Berkeley’s Private Passions series recently and made clear that at Vidal Sassoon’s salon in the 1960s, the Trappist approach was preferred during cuts.

Count Binface has never lacked ambition. Nigel Farage’s only challenger in the Clacton by-election has, over the years, promised to cap the price of croissants at £1.10, nationalise Adele and build at least one affordable house. Admirable though these causes may be, however, the self-proclaimed ‘intergalactic space warrior’ has overlooked one national emergency. If he truly wants to leave Britain – or indeed Earth – in a better place than he found it, he should use this campaign to outlaw the royal blue suit from politics. The royal blue suit has spread through Westminster with the invasiveness of Japanese knotweed. Farage has embraced it with particular enthusiasm.

Unsurprisingly, Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen (LLB) doesn’t judge No. 10’s recent occupants by their policies. Rather, it’s their interior design. First there was Theresa May, ‘desperately trying to keep everything lidded and controlled in mid-century John Lewis’. Then there was Boris Johnson in a ‘ridiculous operatic explosion’ of Lulu Lytle. As for Andy Burnham, he’ll probably go ‘mad for Manchester with graffiti everywhere’. If LLB were asked to redecorate No. 10, would he do it? ‘Well I’d have to really get a skittle on if it was for Keir Starmer, wouldn't I?’ he laughs.

My daughters used to tease me mercilessly about my infatuation with Julio Iglesias. Not because I moved heaven and earth to get a ticket (and an interview) with the absurdly divine dreamboat when he performed in Lausanne in the 1970s. But because I swooned over the crooner’s bare, tanned feet tucked into espadrilles.  It is possible I was the only Swiss housewife who couldn't resist Iglesias in his bare feet, clothed in cotton and as seductive as his ballads. 'Señora Corner,’ Mme. Formosa, my Spanish housekeeper told me, ‘You wouldn't have been happy. Señor Iglesias came on stage in a black suit, black tie and shiny, black shoes. But his singing was still fabuloso.’ Contrary to Mme.

When I announced to my American neighbour that I was going to Ascot for the first time in 20 years, she grabbed me by the arm as if I had just announced that I was running off with the gardener. Apparently Ascot and the Royal Enclosure have changed beyond recognition since the latest refurb and there is much to learn. ‘Which day are you going?’ she asked wildly, as I muttered something about Ladies Day. She turned around in shock, hand over mouth. If she were Hyacinth Bucket from Keeping Up Appearances, I was her nervous friend Elizabeth who spills her tea all over her saucer, shaking like a leaf. ‘We don’t have much time,’ she cried in no particular direction.  When she learned about my proposed outfit, she went pale.

How appropriate that the late David Hockney favoured that ash blonde hair colour, given that the chain-smoker was said to get through 100 cigarettes a day? And not just any old fags: the long, slender and upmarket Davidoff Magnum Classic, of which he was said to keep a store of 2,000 at home for emergencies. Hockney said they helped him concentrate. But this everyday accessory was also a yellowed two-fingers to anyone who wanted to close down what he saw as his right to live as he chose. More than that – and let’s hope no school kids are reading – they imbued him with an old Hollywood, rebel cool, especially in more anti-tab times. ‘You can’t have a smoke-free Bohemia,’ as he once noted.

It was once the norm that a good greeting was typically accompanied by a gregarious physical act, such as doffing your hat or kissing the back of a hand. Increasingly, Brits seem only able to muster a feeble nod or grunt. ‘Physical touch is very important for the cohesion of a community,’ the Berlin-based philosopher Byung-Chul Han remarked in his 2023 lecture ‘On Eros’, in which he discussed what love means in modern society: ‘The squeeze of the hand is what creates trust. Despite, or because of, digital interconnectedness and communication there is very little touching in our society.

The landscape in which female beauty trends play out is increasingly mean and ludicrous, just when it should be less prone to obsession and caricature than ever before. We should be seeing thick hairy legs on urban streets, not just on LGBTQ activists. We should barely be hearing normal women talking about facial ageing or getting regular poison-loaded needles injected into their faces for the sake of the blandest type of beauty.  And we should definitely not be seeing the rise of teenagers making millions from hawking anti-ageing skin products to other children. And yet, here we are. What is obvious is that a female body is still the most powerful asset a human being can have, if presented correctly.

At the news that Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) will allow members to remove their jackets thanks to soaring temperatures, I wept a tiny tear. That is, one of sadness, not relief, as I imagine some of you may be feeling, because it is the thin end of the sartorial wedge. Before you know it, Prince William will be appearing in flip flops on the Buckingham Palace balcony and the Prime Minister will take questions in Bermudas.  For the British man needs absolutely no encouragement to disrobe. Left to his own devices, most will slob about the house in their most comfortable pants. And the moment the sun appears for more than five seconds, the men are out in the streets, shirts off, shorts on, their horrible feet on show in sliders or even – shock horror – flip flops.