Spectator Life

My nemesis is a student at another university. She has not always been my nemesis. We were friends until I realised that she was not who she purported to be. Her interests had been systematically poached from the people around her. Talking to her always felt like an interrogation from a particularly insecure detective. Real feminists know that empowerment comes from defining the breadth of your own animus She mined me constantly for pointers on speed-reading and language-learning. Rarely did she actually follow my advice, especially when it required resourcefulness and hard graft. The final straw came when my nemesis inquired, out of nowhere, about my career plans. ‘Thanks,’ she said when she’d finally managed to file them down to a single job title. ‘I’ll look into that.

Years ago, in the midst of a dating spree that involved numerous encounters with erratic and callous young men, I often consulted my cousin. She’s a cool, emotionally controlled New Yorker who seemed to have an innate knowledge of how to seize and maintain power in sexual or would-be sexual entanglements. She often advised me to nix the wordy message I had planned, especially in response to an outrageous slight, like a last-minute cancellation with a crap excuse and an insincere apology, and send a single yellow thumbs up instead. This was the craftier, nastier update on the cumbrous and obscene big blue thumb from Facebook messenger. For those of us who panic at blankness, the thumb is psychological botulism Her advice was clever.

Well, for the Waitrose classes, it seems you can get all the accessories for middle class eroticism at John Lewis. The store has started selling sex merchandise and the good news is that there’s been a restock this week for Valentine’s Day, which used to be sacred to roses, Charbonnel et Walker chocolates and scent – though excitingly, I was sent an offer of 30 per cent off a subscription to the Economist, billed as the perfect Valentine’s gift (funny people at that magazine). Ann Summers is entering a partnership with Deliveroo: can you think of anything more grim?

Abstinence doesn’t typically come to mind when one thinks of Valentine’s Day. But this year it coincides with Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, when we traditionally give something up. (Bear in mind that Christianity recognises a very gruesome torture and death as the ultimate gesture of love. For us, a little bit of suffering seems perfectly in order on a day celebrating love.) White-knuckled sex positivity isn’t serving women’s spiritual needs I was still in Catholic school in Virginia the last time the two days collided. We were, like all teenagers, obsessed with love and fixated on our own nascent desires, although this obsession manifested in strange ways.

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.

While perusing bins on the John Lewis website, having heard great things about the Brabantia 60-litre, I noticed my stress levels rise – and it wasn’t just because the lid-up height meant the bin wouldn’t fit in my new cabinet. It was because for my whole shopping session there had been a dribble of information about how many other customers had put the items I was looking at in their basket in the last 24 hours, how many had bought them and how fast the stock supply was dwindling. Over on the M&S website, a mattress topper flashed a banner: ‘In demand! Sold 43 times in the last 48 hours’. My heart rate climbed and I felt my wellbeing plummet as a generalised, half-conscious sense of missing out for being too slow – a lifelong fear – crept over me.

Like most clever people, I’m not over-fussed about clothing; there have been numerous studies showing that successful types – unless they’re in entertainment, showbiz or fashion itself, obvs – tend to wear the same thing every day. Whenever I hear the phrase ‘I like to express myself through what I wear’ I know we’re dealing with a dim bulb – how about expressing yourself through, I don’t know, your words and your actions? Fran Lebowitz once said ‘If people don’t want to talk to you, what makes you think they want to hear from your clothes?’ and though she was referring specifically to slogan T-shirts, I often think of it when I see people dressed in an ‘interesting’ manner.

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).