Society

Our national conversation is overwhelmed by tittle-tattle, rumour and gossip. Last week, a salacious email listing George Osborne’s alleged improprieties was circulated among the Westminster bubble. Inevitably, it was then circulated to everybody else, too. Meanwhile, the internet is aflutter with rumours about the identity of a BBC journalist who’s alleged to have paid a teenager tens of thousands of pounds for sordid pictures – and this isn’t even the first sex scandal involving a broadcaster this year.  Foreign visitors were amazed at this insatiable desire to ridicule the private follies and foibles of high society Some might think our modern obsession with grubby tales shows a lack of seriousness. But a love of gossip is nothing new among the English.

I’m not big on nostalgia – if the past was so great, how come it’s history? - but I allowed myself a smirk of reminiscence on reading recently that Ann Francke, chief executive of the Chartered Management Institute (‘a professional body focusing on management and leadership’) has put the damper on the age-old tradition of getting blotto at work parties. Francke told the BBC that while hanging out after-hours with workmates is ‘a great team-building opportunity’, managers have a responsibility to keep inappropriate behaviour in check. ‘That might mean adding additional activities alongside alcohol, limiting the amount of drinks available per person or ensuring that people who are drinking too much are prevented from acting inappropriately towards others,’ she said.

Since I’m so old – 64 this summer – Facebook has always been my preferred form of social media. But if I was a softer soul there’s a feature on it that might really tug at my heartstrings: 'See your memories.' Because many of mine – going back more than a decade – are now blank of any actual memory: 'Content not available.' I know what these were: photographs of me with ex-friends (they’d always take the selfies, as I don’t have a camera-phone) who I’ve fallen out with and who have since deleted the photographs. In 90 per cent of cases, I’d say that I was the one who caused the falling-out.  If I’m being honest, I don’t miss any of them.

Is it a stage of life thing? Recently I’ve got a hankering to join a gentlemen’s club. It might be the creeping realisation that having put it off for so long – drifting in and out of London’s clubs over the years as a guest thinking ‘This is rather nice…’ – as I near 50, it’s a case of now or never. So here’s a question – have you been to a club recently? Have you settled into the tightly stuffed, wing-backed armchair at the Athenaeum, White’s, Buck’s, Boodle’s or the Carlton? Have you dined at the Garrick surrounded by the some of the finest things to drip off the paintbrushes of Zoffany, Millais, Hogarth and numerous others?

The letter was polite but to the point. The PR firm where I’d applied for a job thanked me for my time but told me I hadn’t been successful. The position was going to someone else. Ouch. This wasn’t the first time I’d been rejected, of course – and it certainly wasn’t the last. I’ve been dumped, ditched by friends and overlooked for work more times than I can remember. Who hasn’t? Not even the most successful among us is immune, as Sir Ian Rankin, 62, who has sold more than 20 million books, admitted last month. ‘I have had all kinds of projects turned down,’ he told the Write-Off with Francesca Steele podcast. ‘The rejections are abrupt. They are not at all apologetic, the buggers.

The results are in and nature (i.e. God) wins again. A Bureau of Labour Statistics survey in the US has found that lumberjacks and farmers are the happiest, least stressed and most fulfilled workers, further proving that everything we need to be joyful and satisfied in this life is not man-made. Nor does it have much, if anything, in common with the prevailing culture. A Washington Post analysis of the survey noted that 'The most meaningful and happiness-inducing activities were religious and spiritual, followed by 'the second-happiest activity – sports, exercise and recreation'. I am fond of harping about how a godless society is a miserable one.

‘Some personal news! Delighted to announce I’ll be joining [insert major company] as the new [insert extremely impressive-sounding, well-paid, prestigious job title] this week! It’s been great working at [insert other major, if slightly less gleaming company] but I’m so [insert word denoting excitement or thrill, including "excited" and "thrilled"] at what the future holds! You can find me at [new prestigious institutional email address].’ It is no exaggeration to say that over the past week, half of my Twitter feed has been composed of alerts that follow this exact script. As the trickle thickened to a deluge, I wondered if there was some secret spoof going on. Were they all in on a new year joke?

How would you describe Kate Moss? Supermodel, bad girl, party animal, everybody's favourite plus-one? Well, after her latest announcement, you’d better add ‘wellness guru’ to that list. The 48-year-old has just unveiled her health and lifestyle brand, Cosmoss, which she has positioned as ‘self-care created for life's modern journeys’. The woman who once said her beauty regime consisted of 'three Cs and one V’ – cigarettes, champagne, coffee and vodka – has switched to the three Ss, trademarking the phrase 'soulful, sensual, self-aware'. Feels wrong, doesn’t it? My first reaction to the news was: great, another cool girl who’s been swallowed up into the mundane world of green shakes and yoga.

Recently, early one morning at my sprawling estate in Swampland, Mississippi (a census non-designated place), I saw a bare-chested man walking across my back lawn beneath my office window. He wore a headband light, which gave him a semi-official appearance, but if he was working in some professional capacity, I reckoned, he’d be wearing a shirt. So I strolled out to the back deck and paused at the iron rail fence that surrounds it, connecting it to our guest house. Just beyond is an open outdoor shower that we use to clean off dogs and swamp muck. In it, with the water running was the bare-chested man — only now he was bare all over. I said, “Hey, buddy, what the heck are you doing?