Spectator Life

Cars mirror humans: that is what they are for. (If they didn’t, everyone would drive a 2012 Ford Fiesta). And so, cars are obese too now. They are growing 1cm wider every two years, and only half of new cars now fit into on-street parking spaces, though car parks – presumably elitist! – fare better. Hellish, isn’t it? If I could choose a car to drive – Aston Martin aside – it would be a Range Rover I could fill this page with the horrors the Sports Utility Vehicle inflicts, particularly in cities. It’s a trope but in my experience it’s young men in hot hatches who reverse round corners at 30mph and, as such, exist in a state of pre-manslaughter, who are the danger. It’s true that the SUV driver who used to reverse into our drive in Hampstead each morning at 8 a.m.

I’m writing this in a coffee shop. I write most things in coffee shops but I’ve never been to this one before. As I paid for my latte, I noticed the sign (below). Never mind Brexit or Palestine, I can’t think of an issue that will divide the nation like this will. People will immediately take sides and, like Brexit or Palestine, I think we all know which side will be the more voluble. And it won’t be the side who sigh with relief and think, ‘at last!’ The British are famously a nation of dog lovers but has that love has gone a little too far? The Pope certainly thinks so. Last year, he incurred the unholy wrath of dog owners by declaring that ‘dogs now sometimes take the place of children’.

You can change practically anything about yourself these days, from your appearance through to your gender. But one thing remains practically immutable: your birthday. And here some of us are markedly less fortunate than others, as those of us who made our entry into the world in early January well know. Having a birthday at this time of year means that, in birthday terms at least, you have drawn a very short straw (and it probably won’t have a cocktail attached).  We early January babies already face quite enough dampers on our celebrations without the addition of a prohibition clause The first difficulty is simply party fatigue. This was less of a problem when I was growing up than it is now.

Welcome to the month that faces backwards to last year and forwards to this – which is why it’s named after Janus, the Roman god of transitions, who himself has two faces. Read on to discover January’s trivia, including a joke from Stevie Wonder, a mistake by David Blunkett’s officials, and the reason Heather Mills thinks her daughter is musical … 1 January 1900 – Nigeria becomes a British protectorate. Today the country is home to approximately one-fifth of the world’s black population. (230 million out of 1.2 billion.) 2 January 1921 – premiere of the play R.U.R. by the Czech writer Karel Capek. The play gave us the word ‘robot’ – the roboti are artificial people used to perform tasks for humans. 4 January – World Braille Day.

Thirty of us gathered in the upstairs room of a local hospice, subdued as we contemplated the imminent laying of our raw flesh onto fire. Steve from Peterborough arrived to give a pep talk to prepare us for what awaited us in the car park below. We sighed empathetically when Steve told us he had failed maths O-Level three times He was, he said, an expert fire walker, trained by the man who trained the most famous fire walker in the world – the American motivational guru Tony Robbins, an incredible-hulk of a man known for whipping people up into frenzies of self-belief and positivity. On YouTube you can see him booming, ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ as he steers a terrified Oprah Winfrey along a path of red-hot coals.

It has been four months since my dog died and I still feel like something is missing when I open my front door. At first, I can’t quite work it out. Did I leave the heating on at work? Should I have gone to the shops? Am I in the wrong flat? No, what’s missing is the patter of paws, the inquisitive nose and the affectionate barrage of fur.  After your first dog, there’s a solid chance that you will never live doglessly again Lola was 14 when she died, which is old for any dog but especially for a German shepherd. She used to lie in the centre of the flat I shared with my then-girlfriend with an unencumbered view of every room so that she could monitor proceedings. Now, the whole place feels emptier.

It was about a year ago when my dying father, diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, turned to me and said ‘Sean, can you get me some heroin?’. For a moment – understandably – I wondered if he needed this ultimate painkiller for some fairly ultimate pain, but he didn’t look like he was in agony. And when he followed that up, with a puzzled frown, and the remark: ‘Or maybe some opium, or weed, I’d like to try them,’ I realised that this was nothing to do with analgesics. Dad wanted some psychotropic fun. Dying is not recreation, it’s annihilation.

When I first heard about ebooks, I was horrified. Something deep within me flinched. Surely, I thought – my surface brain trying to rationalise this atavistic spasm – the tactile reality of books is an intrinsic part of the joy of books? Nowadays I only read a physical book if there really is no alternative The satisfying crack of opening up a new hardback (sorry to the timid but I love getting my thumbs in). The unmistakable aroma, from the vanilla hint of co-polymers in the freshly minted paperback to the cigar smoke and benzaldehyde in the second or possibly fourteenth-hand copy. The satisfaction of turning a page, being surprised by the unexpected ending of a chapter and shoving in a bookmark.

This month’s timely trivia includes a canny England footballer, an endangered Lady Astor and a confused Nicholas Parsons. Oh, and we learn how many cups of coffee Steven Spielberg has drunk in his life … 1 December 1919 – Lady Astor becomes the first female MP to take her seat in the House of Commons. One of the regular visitors to her country house Cliveden was Baroness Trumpington, whose young son enjoyed sledging in the snow there. ‘Adam’s other main entertainment,’ wrote Trumpington in her memoirs, ‘was travelling up and down in the lift. He also, to my shame, headbutted Lady Astor.’ 2 December 1697 – St Paul's Cathedral is consecrated.

Hard to imagine now but I was once a hot club DJ. I now need to go to bed on the same day I got up but once upon a time – in fact, hundreds of times upon a time – I dropped big tunes at famous clubs including Le Beat Route, the Camden Palace and Stringfellows. I was knee-deep in cocaine and hookers but had no interest in either. My only interest was the glory I gleaned from filling a dancefloor with shiny, happy people. Being irredeemably shallow and easily flattered, I faux-reluctantly agreed Playing clubs was relatively easy. Revellers were keen to dance, especially those who arrived, shall we just say, ready-stimulated.

1. Don’t try to compete with a super-rich host. You may have to sing for your supper but you are not expected to pay for it. Their ‘people’ will have ensured that everything they need for the purposes of entertaining you is already in place. Your 360g of Marrons Glacés (£64, Fortnum & Mason) will be surplus to requirements and will probably be given directly on by them to a member of staff.  Any herb in a pot bought from a petrol station when your host already has a greenhouse full. Chocolate penises. Just don’t 2. To broke students and underprivileged friends, of course bring wine – particularly if you are worried about being made ill by low-quality stuff they are likely to serve.  3.

In bedrooms across the country, women are wearing £145 sexy silk chemises emblazoned with jewels spelling out the words ‘Ban Space Travel’. This isn’t just a bit tacky or part of a new kink. It’s a sign of growing cynicism around space exploration. (Another item in the same collection, sold by luxury underwear company Bluebella, casually calls for ‘world peace,’ as though the two issues are akin.) Bluebella’s CEO Emily Bendell says the garment, designed by Ashish Gupta, is a ‘cultural statement’. ‘With so many problems here on earth, we have to hold billionaires focused on space exploration to account,’ she says. It is unclear exactly how much holding to account exactly lace-trimmed camisoles can do. But this movement goes far beyond the bedroom.

Sometimes a small purchase gives an outsize amount of pleasure. I have felt this recently with a particularly robust pair of replacement boot laces and an especially bobbly, Italianate lemon. But most satisfying amongst all these small pleasures has been a lighter. Specifically, a Dunhill Rollagas lighter from eBay. Clearly an object of the 1960s, they are about £1,000 when new. This is far too much for me. However, they retail second hand for between roughly £25 and £200. Of course, even £25 is obviously a great deal for a lighter. But, for this investment, you receive a fantastically luxurious object. The pleasure is very like that which I imagine comes with a classic car. It has art deco lines, being made of only two shapes: a cylinder set in a rectangle.

Each year in the charity shop where I volunteer, the Christmas cards arrive in August; by September, they must be on the shelves. We’re a small shop and space is precious; shoes and bags which would make us a healthy profit are swept aside for half-hearted etchings of mardy robins. But at least it’s in aid of charity, and thus in keeping with the spirit of the season – even if Christmas is still almost a third of a year away.

Most Rolls-Royce drivers have four cars or more: this is a car for leisure. They drive their Rolls-Royces perhaps 3,000 miles a year: I would never do that. I would treat it like any other car. Lawrence of Arabia had nine armoured Rolls-Royce Silver Ghosts for his campaign in Arabia. I would go to the supermarket in it, muddy the doors, let brambles scratch it. Before I drove Rolls-Royces I didn’t like them because I didn’t like the people who drove them. Now the fact they drive them is the only thing I like about them.

I can’t decide if I’m a brilliant or bad driver. I admit I didn’t pass first time (it only took seven attempts). But in the intervening decades, I’ve amassed so many miles behind the wheel I like to think that, if he knew me, I’d be Sadiq Khan’s Public Enemy No.1. High mileage, no major accidents and zero fatalities must mean I’m alright. I’ve got a clean licence too. I put it down to the rosary I chant along to on Spotify with all the superstitious spirituality of a Sicilian nun as I speed across town for my dawn swim. It has been divinely ordained that I should dovetail the numerous speed awareness and driver awareness courses I accumulate every three years.

Last week, the Royal Mint unveiled a new set of designs for British coins. They depart dramatically from tradition by featuring themes from nature rather than heraldic, royal, or national emblems. The last set of definitives, designed by Matthew Dent and released in 2008, featured enlarged details of the royal arms, and previous designs have featured emblems of the nations of the UK such as the lion, dragon, thistle, leek and flax plant – as well as the familiar designs introduced at decimalisation. Few of the wild animals are readily identifiable with a single nation or region of the UK The new coins include a dormouse (1p), a red squirrel (2p), oak leaves (5p), a capercaillie (10p), a puffin (20p), a salmon (50p), bees (£1) and combined national plants of the UK (£2).

What we put on our feet says a lot about a person. Shoes define our character. There are shoes that breathe, shoes for diving, shoes for driving, shoes that light up, shoes with wheels in them, shoes that look more like gloves than shoes, shoes by Kanye West, shoes for old people, shoes for the indoors, shoes for hunting, shoes for dancing. You get the point. Neither of them is aesthetically pleasing – at least not for the sane amongst us Then there are Birkenstocks and Crocs: two heinous additions to fashion and yet two very successful brands, albeit for different markets. They are at war. Battling it out for the nation’s feet on metropolitan high streets and in the gardens of our countryside dwellers; a great clog divide of injection-moulded polymer versus leather and cork.

Have you ever considered the harm that men’s daily shaving regime does to the world? I know, if you considered the harm of everything you do on a daily basis then none of us would get up in the morning, but… Think of it: assuming there are three billion men in the world who each day squirt a dollop shaving foam onto their faces and each, therefore, working their way through something like four or five aerosols of shaving foam a year. All told, that means that in the region of 15 billion cans of foam are used (just for men, as the commercials, say), a proportion of which may be recycled or failing that sent to fill huge holes in Canvey Island or Turkmenistan. Fortunately, instead of Taliban-style enforced beard-growing, there is another greener solution.

Most drivers have no idea just how much data their vehicles are collecting. The cars of today are less computers on wheels than they are monitoring monstrosities – and some of the spying is truly shocking. Cars can tap into your search history, and many people’s search histories are, for lack of a better word, filthy Tech experts at the Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit that promotes internet privacy, recently turned their attention to 25 leading car brands, including the likes of Tesla and Nissan. Every single manufacturer they looked at was found to collect far more personal data than is necessary, often about things that have absolutely nothing to do with driving.

They say that, against all expectations, after the age of about 50 you actually get happier, and that much of this happiness is tied in with the merciful death of your dreams. Once over the hill – and I can vouch for this – you feel unrealistic visions that have guided you your whole life simply exit the stage, albeit with a few well-aimed parting kicks. You don’t lament their passing – young people may want an emotional switchback, but in maturity (well, relative maturity) you’ll happily (well, relatively happily) swap it for solid ground under your feet and a little stability of mind. Hope, thankfully, doesn’t always spring eternal. After your first half-century, it’s more like the stubborn dripping of a wonky tap.

This month’s trivia takes in the reason football became known as ‘soccer’, the reason iPhones have virtual keyboards rather than real ones, and the reason Spiro Agnew once made a hurried departure from a Spectator lunch. Agnew once attended a Spectator lunch at which one of the other guests was Barry Humphries 1 October 1909 – the Secret Service Bureau was founded. This soon became the Secret Intelligence Service (or MI6), its first head being Mansfield Cumming, who operated out of his apartment in the building that now contains the Royal Horseguards Hotel. He signed his documents in green ink with a ‘C’ (both colour and initial are still used by the head of MI6).

For much of the past few years, car production has been compromised by a global shortage of microchips. Why no manufacturer has seized the opportunity to market a microchip-free car (i.e. like all cars manufactured before the 1980s) I don’t know. I would certainly swap my too-clever-for-its-own-good Volvo V60 for such a model. I haven’t met anyone outside a Volvo dealership who thinks this is anything other than absurd In fact, I would happily swap my Volvo for a pair of walking boots. They would be of far greater use. Over the past four months my boots have taken me 200 miles across Iceland and 120 miles (as well as ten miles vertically) across Corsica.