Spectator Life

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.

Did you know that an expert on mosses is called a bryologist? And did you know that there are 754 species of moss in The British Isles? No? Well then you can be forgiven for not knowing that my brother, Mark, I write with pride, recently discovered another moss – number 755 – new not only to The British Isles but also to science. Only about 40 naturalists actively study mosses in Britain Poking around along the banks of the River Camlad (the only river, I’m told, that flows from England into Wales) in Montgomeryshire, Mark came across an unfamiliar plant growing in dispersed patches on a riverbank at the edge of a pasture.

We all know that the saddest words in the English language are ‘too late’. We also know that ‘procrastination is the thief of time’ and that ‘punctuality is the politeness of kings. However, since this piece was published a couple of weeks ago, many have got in touch to point out that, very often, ‘the tidy’ are also ‘the early’. Their irrational obsession with being tidy is matched by an equally irrational terror of being late. They’re missing out on the joy of spontaneity, the thrill of uncertainty and of going with the flow I’m not advocating a slack attitude to timekeeping. If you’re late for your train, your plane or your appointment at the Palace to receive your OBE, you really will miss it.

It’s a pretty typical 1930s-built semi in the outer London suburbs: four bedrooms, living room, dining room, kitchen, average back garden and unusually large front garden with a lawn and mixed shrub borders. Or rather that’s what it was until it changed hands earlier this summer and the new owners had different ideas. Now that that front lawn and its surrounding borders are gone. In their place is an extended paved area that has enough space to park at least six cars, maybe eight. Not a blade of grass has survived. The bulldozing of this domestic garden in north London coincided with the Ulez expansion, joining other recent anti-car measures like 20mph speed limits and LTN-closed streets, in an effort to reduce air pollution.

Thinking of adding another six strings to your bow? You wouldn’t be alone – lockdown inspired plenty of people to learn the guitar. The trend may have lessened as people return to the office, but it has still meant UK and European sales for the guitar maker Fender are £5 million higher than before Covid. The company say that almost half of its guitars are sold to people playing the instrument for the first time. Should you follow their example? The short answer is ‘yes’. The same instinct that gets you holding a tennis racket in front of the mirror means that when you progress to the real thing, the one you want is a Fender Stratocaster. Buddy Holly played one, which was why Eric Clapton wanted one. And after Eric Clapton played one, every guitarist since has wanted one.

Back in the early days of the motor car, Rolls-Royce would sell you a ladder chassis and drivetrain, but for the bodywork you’d have to consult a coachbuilder and write a separate cheque. It wasn’t until 1946 that Rolls-Royce provided its own. Henry Royce dealt with the oily bits, but when it came to the styling, his patrons had to visit the likes of Park Ward, Mulliner, James Young and Hooper. There were dozens of firms to choose from and the outcome would be a collaboration between designer and client, not unlike tailoring. There was an upside to all of this: Rolls-Royce customers often ended up with something unique, or at the very least rare.

The Guinness Book of Records states that I have carried out ‘the longest continuous vigil hunting for the Loch Ness Monster’. Others call me the world champion at looking for something that’s not there. Personally, I view it as an act of patience. However you describe it, my world record currently stands at 32 years, two months and a couple of days. I spend my days watching and waiting, full time, summer and winter, for one good glimpse of the Loch Ness Monster.  There is an energy that pours off the Loch. I feel it enter my chest and almost lift me My mission these past three decades has been to film one of these animals and also to bring any evidence that I find to the general public’s attention. It’s a slow job.

My first encounter with the cargo bicycle came more than ten years ago. I was a features writer at the Sunday Telegraph and had three very small children; my assignment was to spend a few weeks trying out three different designs for ferrying kids and shopping and then reach a verdict on which was best. What is a cargo bike, I hear you ask? Put simply, it is a monumental pain in the arse What is a cargo bike, I hear you ask? Put simply, it is a monumental pain in the arse. It is either a bicycle or a tricycle with a box bolted to the front, in which you put your children and other things.

Vogue recently announced that Harry Styles had travelled to Normandy where he had his portrait painted by the British artist David Hockney. It wasn’t the meeting of two cultural icons that caught my attention, or the fact that the unphased Hockney described the world’s biggest popstar as ‘just another person that came into the studio’, but instead it was Styles’s sartorial choices.  https://twitter.com/TheHarryNews/status/1686731114033938432?s=20 The gym bros I went to school with are downing a protein shake in pretty pearl necklaces Styles has long been associated with the gender-bending fashion trend we have seen in recent years.

I am happy to add my name to many reactionary causes, but sorry, I draw the line at trying to save the urinal from the onward march of the unisex loo. On Sunday, equalities minister Kemi Badenoch published proposals to oblige every new building to incorporate separate toilet facilities for men and women. To be fair to her, she isn’t trying to prevent architects from designing unisex facilities where every loo is in effect a little private bathroom, with hand-washing facilities incorporated – her beef is with the subtly different ‘gender-neutral toilets’, which are large rooms full of toilets and sinks which can be used by members of either sex. In some cases, these have been known to force women to walk past men standing at urinals.

Bill Maher has many fans. But no one is a bigger fan of Bill Maher than Bill Maher. His smugness is as apparent as it is nauseating. That self-satisfied grin, forever etched on his face, gets on my nerves. I’m sure I’m not alone. Twenty years ago, Maher, the human equivalent of Marmite, made his first appearance on HBO. Since then, his show, Real Time with Bill Maher, has grown in popularity – and for good reason. It’s a great show. Good comedians must be able to poke fun at themselves, not just members of the audience. Maher obviously never got the memo Not necessarily because of Maher, but more because of the eclectic guests (one of his very first guests was Ann Coulter) and supremely talented joke writers. You see, Maher is a poor interviewer and an even poorer comic.

Rat girl summer is a typically absurd TikTok meme that most women –indeed, most humans – born before 1990 would probably struggle to understand. But it’s a thing. And here’s what it means, according to the Washington Post: it is ‘a TikTok movement that emphasizes living like a rat: scurrying around the streets at all hours of the day and night, snacking to your heart’s delight, and going to places you have no business going to’. After a content creator called Lola Kolade encouraged followers to ‘embrace the rodent energy’ in June, #ratgirlsummer has been shared over 25 million times on TikTok.

I felt a flash of affection reading that Boris Johnson’s plan to build an outdoor swimming pool at his second home in Oxfordshire may be stalled by the presence of great crested newts. What a very Bojo situation; seeing the big picture, seeking fun, determined to do things large – but hampered all the way. Carrie will probably have told him that it will be lovely for their three kiddies and that they’ll save a fortune on days out in the school holidays. But, trust me, as someone who was owned by a swimming pool for the best part of a decade, this may well be one folly too far, even for Boris.

Participants in a 12-step programme generally identify a point of no return where things have become so bad that they must seek help. That moment should have come when I accidentally bought the emerald ring. Yet nothing seems to temper my addiction to online auctions.  As a woman who likes the occasional flutter, it’s easy to get carried away during the actual bidding For the blissfully unafflicted, the-saleroom.com is a site that lists hundreds of thousands of lots, up at auction at houses all over the UK and Ireland. In other words, anyone can engage in online bidding wars without having to jump in the car and drive to a draughty warehouse.

Do you have a favourite petrol station? I do. It’s a scruffy little place in East Bergholt in the wilds of north Essex. It has two elderly-looking pumps that I think have padlocks on them when no one is around. I’ve never managed to buy fuel from them, but I’m determined to before it’s too late. Where it takes about two minutes to fill up a car with petrol or diesel, even the fastest electric car chargers take 30 minutes Because with the headlong rush to buy electric cars (or EVs as they’re so romantically known) fast coming, the humble British petrol station seems under threat.

The eight-year-old me hated Barbie. My family couldn’t afford the impossibly-proportioned doll that my friends gleefully dressed as an air hostess or housewife. I made do with her cheaper, lumpen British equivalent, Sindy, instead. And yet I shall be in the queue for the Pepto-Bismol explosion of neon that is the new Barbie movie, starring Margot Robbie as my friends’ brash plastic heroine made real. Our gang includes a retired barrister and a graphic designer who started skating in her late sixties What won me over is not that the film stars bare-chested Ryan Gosling, as Barbie’s anatomically-challenged boyfriend Ken, although obviously that is quite a pull.